Death And The Vampire
by persephonesfolly
Summary: School life has its challenges, especially for a vampire like Edward, but throw a serial killer in the mix, and academia turns deadly.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

The train was crowded that morning. I was glad to exit and push through the crowd of businessmen waiting to get on it and be off to their jobs in the city. The town where Saint Anselm's Academy was located was a small one. I passed by the post office where the harried postmistress was trying to get her little girl's sweater on. Her thoughts were a tangled mass of frustration as she knelt in the doorway wondering what was taking her useless husband so long to come downstairs from the office and walk their child to school.

Mr. Green was sweeping the wooden walkway in front of his general store next door. His thoughts were more soothing, concentrating on the small pile of dust he'd collected, until he saw me.

'_Another one of them; those kids are like ants. Red ants swarming about all the time.'_

I glanced ruefully down at my jacket-clad arms and sighed. The school uniform was more burgundy than red, but I understood his point. The school building and mass of students tended to dominate the surrounding area. Carlisle and I had many conversations about the tensions between 'town and gown' in an academic town since I started coming to the academy. Townsfolk liked the extra income afforded by students who came to their shops to buy things, but there was also some resentment because teenagers weren't always the staid, respectable citizens the adults wished them to be. Mr. Green had lost many a stick of candy or pack of gum to the wandering hands of a Saint Anselm Academy student with a sweet tooth but no coins on them at the time.

I did my best to block out the thoughts of the other town folk I passed them by and climbed the rising lane to the school with its stone wall and imposing gate. The gate with its intricate rococo design of loops, fleur de lis, and circles, was open now to admit day students like myself.

'_There he is. He's so dreamy.'_

'_Those eyes, like melted honey…'_

'_It's him! He's here today! And I get to sit next to him in math class. I'm so lucky! If only he'd notice me.'_

'_I'd be Cathy to his Heathcliff any day of the week.'_

'_It's Edward Cullen…wait, is he looking at me? How do I look? Are my stockings straight?'_

The usual mass of female thoughts washed over me as I entered the gates of the academy and drew near a clump of girls loitering outside the main building by the rosebushes. The boys' and girls' dorms flanked the main edifice, creating a large U shape configuration with a broad graveled drive down the center with flowerbeds and trees on either side.

Clara Spencer, a freckle faced red head, leaned her head back over her shoulder to view the back of her legs where her stocking seams were, in fact, crooked, and walked right into the back of Louisa Maynard who was chatting with Yvonne Briscoe

The Maynard girl turned, scowling, her straight black hair swinging forward to briefly obscure her face before settling back at its usual place at her jaw line. I didn't like the new hairstyles for women. It made them look boyish. Even the expression they used to describe it, "bobbing" their hair, had a masculine sound to it.

"Omigosh Louisa! I'm so sorry. I…I didn't see you there," Clara stuttered.

"If you'd look where you were going you would have," Louisa shot back and stalked off in a swirl of burgundy skirts.

As we passed each other on the main drive she noticed my eyes on her and flushed, her light olive complexion darkening in embarrassment.

'_Did he hear me snap at Clara?'_ she wondered. _'Stupid girl! She's made me look like a shrew in front of the handsomest boy in school.'_

I kept my expression neutral and kept walking. Louisa couldn't possibly know that it was her blood and not her personality that attracted my attention. The infusion of blood in her face resulting from her embarrassment rendered the girl more enticing, not less. I was still uncomfortably aware of the blood in every student I passed by. After nearly six years of being a vampire, my control was a lot better though not perfect. I credited Carlisle's guidance with that, but I was a predator at heart and being surrounded by my natural prey was always a challenge in self-control.

I'd been attending school for the past month, eager to be out of the house in order to give Carlisle and Esme a little privacy. As a day student at Saint Anselm's Academy, I endured an hour-long train ride and a twenty minute walk at human speed through the town and up the lane to the school each day.

Much as I cared for Esme, her thoughts about Carlisle and her continuing struggle with newborn bloodlust made it difficult at times to be around her. She had at least another year before she'd be ready to reintegrate fully into human society. She made Carlisle happy in a way that I never could, but there were only so many long walks I could take to let their romance develop. When I suggested enrolling in school to finish my education, Carlisle gave me his blessing.

"Edward, hey, Edward!"

Ned Shelton, brash, blonde, and easily the most tactless student in the academy, came running up to me, forcing me to stop before the broad stone steps leading up to the front door of the main school building.

"I caught you," he stated triumphantly.

"Ned."

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Everything was a competition to Ned Shelton.

"Did you finish the biology homework?"

"Of course."

Why wouldn't I have? Not having to sleep had its advantages. Despite the long commute to and from school, there was always time to complete assignments. My enhanced memory skills made studying in the traditional sense a moot point, but there were still textbooks to be read, notes to be taken, essays and assignments to be written.

"Show me, will you?"

I searched Ned's thoughts and found not the slightest indication that he realized giving him the answers was at all dishonest. To Ned, sharing answers was a friend's obligation, rather like loaning out a pencil.

"No."

"Aw come on. Please?" Ned wheedled, consciously scrunching his face into what he fondly imagined was an expression of irresistible appeal.

I could see in his thoughts that he wasn't about to give up until I said yes, so I removed myself, dodging around him to make my way up the steps, taking them two at a time.

"Good morning, Miss Lucey," I said politely to the willowy brunette teacher standing in the entry hall.

She wrenched her thoughts from the Shakespearean sonnets she was planning to teach us that day and smoothed her severe black skirt with one hand as she noticed me.

Wonderful. Even women twice my biological age became self-conscious in my presence. I didn't think I'd ever get used to the effect I had on my prey. My memories of my original high school were foggy, but I doubt I'd attracted this much notice when I was human.

'_Oh, it's that lovely new boy. What's his name again?'_ she thought to herself.

"Good morning, Mr. Cullen," she beamed, pleased that she remembered the name I'd taken when I enrolled a month ago mid-term. It seemed simpler to take Carlisle's last name since he was posing as my uncle and guardian.

'_Gotta get those answers,'_ thought Ned as he barreled up the steps behind me.

"Hey Edward, I want…"

Ned stopped short as he saw me standing with Miss Lucey.

"Er, I mean, I want..um," he trailed off uncertainly, beginning to realize that perhaps asking a fellow student for his biology homework right in front of another teacher wasn't the smartest move he could make.

'_Such an odd child,'_ Miss Lucey thought as Ned stood hemming and hawing.

'I wonder if he's capable of reading Hotspur's part when we get to Henry IV? He looks the part but his reading skills leave much to be desired.'

Noticing Miss Lucey's interested gaze, Ned laughed nervously and put his hand to the back of his head, mussing up his already tousled hair and becoming even more tongue-tied. Taking advantage of his distraction, I slipped away and headed toward my first class of the day.

I'd enrolled as a third year student, the same as I'd been in 1918 when my high school career was cut short by the Spanish influenza epidemic.

I'd forgotten exactly how annoying high school could be with its petty dramas and mundane procedures. It was worse at lunchtime. The dining hall with its crisp white tablecloths and regimented rows with rigid social pecking orders wasn't for me, so I sat outside in the garden patio area where upper classmen where allowed to eat if they didn't feel like eating cooped up indoors.

Unfortunately, Ned decided to adopt me as a friend, despite the fact that I never gave him any encouragement. So, more often than not I found myself in his company of misfits. Humans liked routine, so to fit in I had to establish my own routines. I couldn't just disappear during each lunch hour. Ned enjoyed being the leader of his group and didn't require much interaction from me. That suited me just fine.

"Gee Edward, you sure eat fast," Ned stated, eyeing the empty plate on my food tray.

He sat cross-legged on the grass with his own tray balanced precariously on his knees, attended by his two best friends, Steve and Gordon. They were a study in contrasts. Steve was painfully thin and tall and walked with a limp due to a bout with polio as a child. Gordon was short and decidedly plump with glasses that made his eyes look over large. They were all third year students like me.

Beyond them seated on a cast iron bench were Clara, the little red head with crooked stocking seams, and her roommate Dorothy. They weren't really part of Ned's group. Instead they hovered on the periphery.

Dorothy, the curly haired brunette, often removed her jacket to show off the white blouse under her school jumper because someone once told her white was 'her color'. Their friend Harriet sat next to them. She was a small girl with intense grey blue eyes and dull dishwater blonde hair.

Other students sat in groups around the patio area and grass verges, but these were the ones I usually spent lunch with.

"Yeah, you sure do," sighed Gordon, looking at the food piled high on his own plate, and thinking dolefully of how short the lunch period was.

Gordon fascinated me, not because his thoughts were anything exceptional, but because of his weight. With all that extra body mass, surely he had more blood in him than Steve or Ned. Steve's limp made him a natural choice for prey, but Gordon would be a much more satisfying kill, if I were so inclined. Which I wasn't, I reminded myself whenever the thirst burned in the back of my throat.

"Perhaps I'm just an efficient eater."

Gordon blinked and Steven stifled a laugh. They had no idea how much I wanted to feast on them. I wasn't reduced yet to sneaking out of class to catch and drain a few of the rabbits or gophers who were the lucky recipients of the lunches I threw over the hedges as I walked to the patio area each day, but it was touch and go at times.

Clara and Dorothy burst into giggles at the look on Gordon's face, while Harriet scowled at her food and tried to pretend she wasn't eavesdropping.

Ned shot them a look, realizing they were responding to what I'd said and turned a critical eye on me. I sighed inwardly at his thoughts. He was getting jealous again. He did that whenever I became the focus of attention. I wasn't particularly happy about it either. I was supposed to be blending in unobtrusively as Carlisle suggested, not calling attention to myself.

Time to get to work.

"How did you do on the science assignment?" I asked Ned.

He beamed.

"I got a B!"

Not surprising since I'd already seen from his thoughts that Gordon allowed Ned to copy his answers before biology class began. Gordon scowled down at his food, shoveling forkfuls into his mouth as he seethed over the grade, certain that he, and by extension Ned, deserved an A and not a B.

"I had a feeling you didn't need my help."

Ned thrust aside his slight inkling that I was being sarcastic and threw back his head to laugh.

"Me? Naw, I can do biology with one hand tied behind my back."

Letting my attention wander as Ned continued to brag about his imaginary scholarly prowess, I honed in on Harriet's thoughts. She interested me. While Clara and Dorothy's minds tended to jump about disjointedly, reacting to inconsequential things, Harriet's were concise, and often surprising.

'_Lunch will be over soon,'_ she thought, glancing at her watch_. 'I wonder if Miss Lucey will start on the sonnets today. She really ought to have covered them before we read Romeo and Juliet. How can she expect us to understand a tragic love story if we don't go over the sonnets first?'_

To my surprise, Harriet launched into a mental recitation of My Mistress' Eyes Are Nothing Like The Sun while simultaneously carrying on a conversation with Clara and Dorothy about the apple cobbler served at lunch.

Thankfully the school bell rang before Harriet could summon up another sonnet and we left to go turn in our lunch trays before I was off to math class and the admiring glances of my seatmate, Yvonne. I had a feeling she'd still be in that class next year since she never thought of math while in the class, only of me. It was really distracting trying to concentrate on the teacher while a teenaged girl fantasized about you. If her parents only knew her thoughts they'd have sent her to an all girls convent school instead of a coed academy.

0-0-0

"So, how was your day?" Carlisle asked when I entered the spacious Victorian farmhouse he'd rented out in the country when Esme joined our family.

"Yes please, tell us everything," Esme entreated. She was reclining on the stuffed horsehair chaise lounge, practicing her human mannerisms.

I brushed a few leaves from the shoulders of my school uniform jacket before taking it off and hanging it up in the wardrobe by the front door. Running home from the train station at vampiric speed was a joy after having to slow myself down at the academy and town, but it tended to leave bits of foliage stuck to my clothing due to the force of my passage through the woods surrounding the isolated farm house.

"It was just the usual," I told them and recounted what I'd learned in the classes. Carlisle was especially interested in science class. When I told him that we'd have to do a laboratory experiment project in the spring he had all sorts of suggestion and we talked them over with Esme.

I did my best to make school sound more interesting than it was, for Esme was still struggling to see humans as anything other than food, so I presented Ned's antics as humorously as possible, and acted out Harriet's ability to quote Shakespeare while discussing cobbler in a way that made her smile.

We spent the evening analyzing the sonnets I'd been assigned to read for homework, then I played the piano for my adopted parents before tackling my biology, math, French, and history homework. As usual we went for a walk to greet the dawn. Esme never tired of seeing the play of light on Carlisle's skin as the sun crept over the mountains. She admired it on me as well, but not in the same way.

Carlisle planned to ask her to marry him as soon as she completed the newborn phase of her transformation. I knew that she was waiting for him to ask, anxious for it, but I kept that knowledge to myself. Some things should stay private.

Then I was shrugging back into my school uniform jacket and back off to school again.

My first indication that all wasn't right came when I made my way through Saint Anselm's gates and saw two of the first year boys whispering together.

"Did you hear?"

"What?"

"The postmistress. She's been murdered."

"What?"

"My uncle is a policeman and he said it was awful. There was blood everywhere. Pools and pools of it."

The other boy looked sick but slightly gleeful.

"I'm going to tell Julius," he said. "You tell Arnold." Then he was off like a shot across the graveled path to a cluster of boys hanging about at the entrance of the boys' dormitory.

I knew Julius. He was a room and board student in my French class, a first year who'd been moved up to second level French. I hoped the poor kid didn't faint at the news. He was a timid one who jumped whenever the teacher called on him.

My mind dwelled on the thought of pools and pools of blood. I didn't realize I'd stopped walking until I saw the first boy staring at me and read his thoughts.

'_He's scary. Why's he looking at me like that?'_

I forced a smile on my face, said "Good Morning," and walked on, leaving the first year boy slightly dazed behind me.

'_Why did I think he was scary? He talked to me! A third year talked to me!'_

I made my way past knots of students all whispering about the murder. I'd just seen the postmistress yesterday morning fussing over her child. Come to think of it, the post office had been closed when I walked past it from the train station.

Mr. Green's argument with an early morning customer distracted me, but the 'closed' sign was definitely on the post office door when I passed by. There'd been no scent of blood, so the woman must have been killed somewhere else.

There was a cluster of girls standing square in the middle of the main drive, not caring that they were blocking the way.

"Must we discuss this? It's distasteful."

Marjorie Van Houten, beautiful and very aware of that fact, smoothed back her short honey blonde hair and curled her lip at her sycophants, all fourth years like herself save for her frizzy haired third year cousin Yvonne, my nemesis in math class.

"But isn't it just too awful Marjorie?"

"We could be murdered in our beds."

Marjorie began to nod her agreement with her friends' words, then caught sight of me and decided to raise her voice so I'd be sure to hear it.

"Don't be silly. We're students at Saint Anselm's Academy, not some middle class woman from town who was probably no better than she should be. Why would anyone want to harm one of us?"

The incredible thing was that the girl thought comparing the postmistress unfavorably to herself and her friends would make her seem attractive.

"We're perfectly safe here," she went on, turning slightly to face her cousin, who looked unconvinced. "I'll protect you, Yvonne."

Lillian Gish would've been green with envy at the performance Marjorie was giving. As a matter of fact, Marjorie was consciously emulating Miss Gish's performances in the movie theater in the way she reached an arm out gracefully towards her relative.

Yvonne's surprised thoughts proved to me that Marjorie's performance was for my benefit and not her little cousin. I considered the girl. Her flyaway hair was at shoulder level, growing out from the sort of bobbed cut her cousin sported. She stared at Marjorie's outstretched hand before taking it gingerly after pausing long enough to incite Marjorie's ire.

'_Useless. Yvonne is completely useless,'_ Marjorie thought as she smiled at the girl and clasped her hand briefly before letting it drop.

"Oh, Edward. I didn't see you there," Marjorie lied as she turned around and turned her smile on me. "Have you heard the dreadful news? I was just comforting my cousin. She's so upset."

Yvonne didn't look upset, just confused. I could see from her thoughts that her older cousin had never expressed any concern over her before.

The girl yelped softly as Marjorie kicked the back of her ankle, than placed an arm around her shoulders in false sympathy.

"Is that so?" I asked Yvonne.

"Yes, yes it is!" she said quickly as Marjorie tightened her grip.

"Then I'd best walk you to class," I said, and pulled Yvonne gently away from her astonished cousin and escorted her up the stairs.

"I…you…don't have to if you don't want to," she sputtered. "I'm fine."

I hid a smile as I caught Marjorie's furious thoughts. Any one of the words she was thinking would get her expelled from school if she said them out loud.

"I know," I said then winced inwardly.

I couldn't very well explain that I knew because I'd read her thoughts.

"I just thought you could help me with the first question of our homework last night," I continued. "I'm not sure if I got it right."

'_Edward Cullen is asking me for help?_?'

I caught the girl's arm as she tripped on the first step up to the school building. After five minutes of fumbling around in her satchel for her homework and staring at the first question, it became clear that Yvonne needed more help in math than I did.

When class began, she resolved to pay better attention from then on in case I ever asked her for help again. If nothing else, it made her thoughts less distracting.

As the day progressed more and more teachers heard the news and couldn't help thinking about it in class. They were under the mistaken impression that none of the students knew about the murder and they'd been told to carry on as normal.

Miss Lucey found it especially hard to do so. She'd been acquainted with the postmistress and kept choking up at the thought of the motherless little girl left behind. All the adults were distracted. Even the librarian was far more lax than usual, allowing whispering during the study period. Carlisle had convinced the school that I was recovering from an illness, hence my pallor, and couldn't be expected to have a physical education class this year. We both thought it best to wait until next year before placing me in any sort of physically competitive environment. There were still times when I forgot my own strength. It wouldn't do to break a tennis racket or crushed a basketball in front of witnesses.

I shouldn't have been surprised that Ned's friend Gordon had all the details of the murder and regaled us with them at lunch.

"Spill it," Ned commanded. "I want to know everything."

Gordon looked longingly at the remaining food on his plate, but complied.

"According to Arnold who got it from Peter whose uncle is a policeman, Mrs. Douglas' body was found in the side yard of her house. Her head was bashed in and she was lying in a pool of blood."

Clara, Dorothy and Harriet all exclaimed in disgust from their perch on the bench. Gordon looked their way and lowered his voice as he continued.

"He used a baseball bat on her. There were brains left on the bat when they found her."

"He?" Ned yelled. "He who? Do they know who it is yet?"

In his mind's eye he was hunting down an escaped convict wearing black and white stripes and a bandit's mask. Ned thought in the most simplistic forms imaginable.

"I think Gordon just meant that it was probably a man if they used a bat," Steve said conciliatorily.

"Yeah, because if it had been a girl it would've been a…tennis racket," Gordon supplied as he caught sight of Louisa Maynard stalking towards him.

"It's more a girls' thing, isn't it?" he whispered as she came closer.

Louisa was the captain of the girls' tennis team.

Steve snickered.

'_I wouldn't put it past Louisa to bash Gordon's head in if she heard him imply tennis was a girly sport,'_ he thought, turning innocent eyes on the black haired girl standing over he and his friends, hands on her hips.

I was leaning against a tree, so she hadn't noticed me yet.

Ned tilted his chin combatively, reacting instinctively to her challenging stance.

"Hey Louisa, what do you want?"

Her black eyes lighted on him, assessing him as one leader to another.

"You've heard, right? We've got to do something."

"About what?" Ned asked, not liking the way Louisa was towering over him.

"About the murder, of course. We've got to be ready in case something happens here."

She caught his interest, and Ned was instantly fixated on the idea of action.

"What do you have in mind?"

"Patrols, of course. There are lots of baseball bats around here. Anyone could pick one up, and at night asleep in our dorms we're sitting ducks. We're not even allowed to have locks on our dorm room doors," she finished in disgust.

"Patrols," echoed Ned, his face lighting up at the thought. "Sign me up! I'll lead a patrol, no problem."

"Won't the teachers object?" Steven offered timidly.

"We aren't supposed to be out of our beds at night," Clara reminded her. "Unless we need to use the powder room."

Gordon pushed his glasses back up his nose. "She's right, they'll never go for it."

"They will if we sign a petition and submit a proposal to the Headmaster and Headmistress!" Louisa countered. "That's how we got permission to start a drama club last year."

"Patrols are a bit different than clubs, don't you think?" Dorothy said. "Isn't it dangerous for students to be out patrolling?"

Louisa rounded on her, stepping forward to scold her. "It's thinking like that which gets people killed. There's a dangerous murderer on the loose and I intend to do something about it."

"Me too," yelled Ned enthusiastically, his mind enacting a scene where he tackled the stripe suited bandit who was carrying a bat while lurking down the hall of the boys' dorm.

"Then be ready to sign the petition at dinner tonight. All of you."

Louisa shifted to glare around at everyone threateningly and finally caught sight of me.

"Oh! Edward."

"I won't be at dinner," I reminded her. "I'm just a day student."

'_I can't believe I didn't see him there,'_ she wailed mentally. _'Why does he always have to see me at my worst?'_

"That's OK, you can sign it tomorrow, before class."

Flustered, she left suddenly to go pounce on another group of students eating over by the flowerbeds.

"Patrol, that's the ticket," Ned muttered.

Steven sighed. "I don't know what good it'll do to ask. There's no way the Headmaster or Headmistress are going to let us roam around at night. Besides, it was probably someone from town who hated her. Isn't it usually the husband who murders the wife for her money?"

Gordon smiled. "It couldn't have been him. He was in the local saloon all night long. He was still there when the milk man found the body the next morning."

"What was he doing in a saloon that early in the morning?" wondered Clara out loud.

"Passed out drunk," Gordon answered. "Or so Peter says and his uncle is a policeman."

I closed my eyes and leaned back against the tree. Humans murdered each other. It didn't have anything to do with me. I was just grateful I hadn't smelled the blood. The postmistress's house must have been far from the main road leading through town. I'd be careful to stick to my usual route on my way home.

o-o-o

'Mama. Where's mama? I want mama.'

The little girl's thoughts repeated themselves over and over as she sat on the boardwalk in front of the post office. Her sweater was on inside out, and I could smell the salty residue of tears wafting off her cheeks.

It was the postmistress's daughter. I recognized her from before.

"Douglas, I'm so terribly sorry. Lavinia was a good woman."

The crisp tones of the town doctor, Dr. Bryce, came from behind me. I stopped and glanced back to see him place his hand on Mr. Douglas' shoulder.

The postmistress's husband was looking haggard and distracted, his cheeks unshaven and his collar askew.

"What? Oh, thank you. Have you seen my daughter?"

An expression of disgust crossed the good doctor's face and was gone in an instant. I could see from his thoughts that he concluded that Mr. Douglas had been drinking. He hadn't, he was merely distracted by thoughts of his missing child.

I realized that I was blocking his line of sight to the post office where his wife had worked, so I moved over a few steps, pretending to be engrossed by something in the window of the local apothecary. As if I needed hoarhound cough drops or headache powders.

'_There she is,'_ thought Mr. Douglas.

"I'm sorry," he muttered to the doctor. "I have to go," he said and pulled away from the doctor's hand, brushing past me to stand over his daughter.

"Papa? Where's Mama? I want my Mama."

I clenched my teeth and reminded myself that little girls were not food. The child's cry had all my hunting instincts blazing as venom began to pool in my mouth. Predatory animals are drawn to sounds of distress in the wild. It signals the presence of easy prey. I would not be an animal.

Pulling away from the shop window, I forced myself to walk past the post office at a normal pace.

Mr. Douglas had pulled the little girl into his arms, gripping her tightly.

"She's not coming back, sweetheart. I told you."

"She says wait here outside for her after school. She always says to wait outside and not bother the customers. I'm waiting, where is she?"

At that, Mr. Douglas broke down and began to sob. His thoughts were a mass of self-loathing and recriminations over having been out drinking all night when his wife was killed. Despite that, the most prominent thought in his mind was the desire for yet another drink. He was as addicted to liquor as I was to blood.

Putting my head down, I walked past and pretended not to notice the grief stricken man clutching an equally grief stricken little girl, and walked to the train station. It had nothing to do with me. It was just another human tragedy, a pointless crime. I had to get home to Carlisle and Esme.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"You say she was bludgeoned to death?" Carlisle asked, setting his book aside.

His thoughts immediately leapt to the pain the woman most have experienced while dying. He hoped that she'd passed out after the first blow.

"How horrible," Esme murmured, trying to not imagine the way the blood must have smelled.

I recounted everything I'd learned from the other students.

"Do they have any idea who the culprit is?" asked Carlisle.

"No, none at all from what I gather."

"I thought that school was in a safe neighborhood," Esme said ruefully. "It had such a good reputation."

"It still does, I'm sure," Carlisle said. "Murder is part of the human condition. In my medical practice I've seen many victims of crimes. Even in a small town there's bound to be some instances. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the school."

He smiled gently at her.

"I just worry that Edward isn't safe there," Esme said, then hung her head as she realized how ridiculous that sounded.

Esme already thought of me as a son, and her maternal instincts led her to be protective. It was sweet and annoying at the same time.

"I can take care of myself," I reminded her unnecessarily.

"I know that, I do. I just forget sometimes."

Esme smiled, and just like that all was forgiven. She had the gift of knowing just what to say to make Carlisle and I feel better. It wasn't connected to her conscious thoughts either. It wasn't calculating or manipulative at all. It was an instinct that I envied. I was lucky indeed in my adoptive parents. I put the murder out of my mind and prepared for school the next day.

Yvonne's thoughts were not on math during class. Thankfully they weren't focused on me either. All she could do was worry about being murdered, which also wasn't exactly conducive for helping me to concentrate on the problems Mr. Pitcairn was writing on the chalkboard.

I tried to concentrate solely on his thoughts, but it was difficult. Telepathy was like having several different radios on in the same room at the same time. While I could 'tune in' to one particular person's thoughts from across the room, the thoughts of the person nearest me were closer and thus more accessible. The more emotional the thoughts the stronger they were, and Yvonne was in a state of agitation.

'What if the murderer sneaks into the school? Why did I listen to those boys? I wish I didn't know about the blood and the brains.'

Yvonne bit her lip and twisted her pencil, rotating it between her fingers as she played with it rather than using it to copy down the problem on the board.

The boy seated at the desk to my left, Thomas, was studiously drawing guns and sabers in the margins of his paper. His thoughts were uncomplicated as he concentrated on the curves and lines.

I did a quick scan of the room. Only half the students were actually paying attention to Mr. Pitcairn. It was the same in my other classes as well. At lunch the students sat in groups whispering about the murder.

As I walked through the rows of lunch tables carrying my tray of unwanted food, I saw Yvonne again, her frizzy hair in a cloud around her face as she glanced longingly out the window of the dining hall, ignored by her cousin Marjorie and Marjorie's friends.

'I wish I could sit with Clara, Dorothy, and Harriet. They always end up near Edward. I don't know why Marjorie always wants me to sit near her. I don't think she even likes me. Oh look, there's Edward.'

Her lips curved up in a smile, and her cousin noticed, turning her head to catch sight of me. I pulled my mind abruptly away from Marjorie's thoughts, for they were embarrassing.

Walking quickly, I exited out the French doors and into the patio. I took one of the brick walkways leading to the patch of grass and benches where Ned and his friends ate, unobtrusively chucking bits of food over the tall hedge separating the patio from the pony trails.

Louisa was already there, sitting on the bench where the three girls usually sat, hands folded in her lap. When she saw me her heart rate jumped a little.

"Oh, Edward. I was just waiting for Dorothy."

Quirking an eyebrow, I sat down on the edge of a planter and set my tray next to me.

"I'm sure she'll be here soon."

Louisa clenched and unclenched her fingers.

"We didn't get our petition approved. I wanted to tell her myself since she's the corridor monitor."

"Dorothy?"

The girl never impressed me as the corridor monitor type. She wore her long brown hair in ringlets and giggled a lot with Clara, her roommate. If she truly was a corridor monitor, she never allowed her duties to intrude on her thoughts during the lunch hours I'd spent near her. She tended to focus on fashion, music, and borrowed romance novels. It would be so easy to lure her out one night, to use romance as an excuse to separate her from the herd.

There I went again, thinking of humans as prey.

Louise gave a small half smile.

"I know what you're thinking."

I rather doubted that, but I let it pass.

"But Dorothy ended up in the room nearest the stairs so it was her or Clara as corridor monitor and Clara still keeps a doll collection," she continued, a blend of affection and gentle mockery.

Louisa smiled and lifted her shoulders in a quick shrug. Her thoughts jumped to her own two beloved porcelain dolls kept safe in a trunk at her home in upstate New York. She waited for me to laugh at Clara's childishness, and when I didn't it pleased her.

"So Dorothy became corridor monitor?" I prompted.

Louisa shrugged again.

"Dorothy was the better choice. She gets better grades."

"I see."

And I did see, far more than Louisa knew. I saw from her thoughts that she'd planned to be corridor monitor herself, until her own roommate Helen broke her ankle right before school began and had to take a first floor room. Louisa gave up her chance at corridor monitor to remain roommates with Helen.

"Here they come."

Louisa stood as she saw the girls coming up the path behind me.

Harriet's thoughts registered surprise, and a not very charitable suspicion that Louisa was waiting there because she knew I was usually first to arrive at the lunch area.

Dorothy and Clara's thoughts were focused on me, and were the usual female combination of attraction coupled with instinctive wariness. Carlisle explained to me that our physical beauty was a manifestation of our changed physiology. Humans couldn't help being attracted even while their instincts screamed 'danger'.

"We didn't get the petition approved."

Louisa was all business now that the girls arrived.

I hid a smile as Dorothy's thoughts registered incomprehension then startled remembrance.

"What a pity," she said faintly, holding her food tray out in front of her.

"Exactly." Louisa agreed. "We'll have to think of something else. Come to my room tonight after dinner."

Dorothy and Clara exchanged a look as they thought of the romance novel hidden under Dorothy's mattress that they'd planned to read out loud to each other that evening as they ate the chocolates sent by Clara's mother for her birthday.

"Yes, alright," Dorothy nodded, her curls bouncing.

"Tonight then," Louisa said smartly and left.

'_She's so bossy,'_ thought Harriet.

'_I really wanted to find out what happens next with Diana and the sheik too,"_ Clara thought wistfully as she realized her novel reading would have to be postponed.

'_Another meeting?'_ Dorothy sighed inwardly then turned a smile towards me.

"Are you eating with us today?" she asked.

"If you don't mind."

The sudden joy in their thoughts assured me that I was more than welcome. However, when Ned and the other boys showed up I stood courteously and moved over to my usual spot to lean against the tree, allowing Ned to take center stage.

"I can't believe they won't let us defend ourselves," he grumped, taking a bite out of an apple and continuing to talk with his mouth full.

"How are we supposed to protect everyone if we're tucked up in bed like babies?"

Gordon at least finished chewing his bite of bread before answering.

"They lock the doors to the outside you know."

"But everyone knows the kitchen door lock is loose," Steven said, pausing when the others stared at him. "I heard some of the older boys talking about it. They always slip out through the kitchen door when they sneak into town."

"Do You slip out at night?" Gordon asked, pushing his glasses back up his nose from where they'd slipped down, his thoughts a mass of surprise and admiration.

"No," Steven replied shortly. He glanced down at his crippled leg.

Ned noticed and changed the subject.

"Why would he, unless he wanted to investigate the murder? Who do you think killed the post lady? It had to be someone strong, right? Since he bashed her brains out."

"I don't know about that. I can't run around the bases very fast but I can hit a homerun," Steven bridled. "You don't have to be built like the strong man at the circus to be able to swing a bat."

"Oh, right."

Ned cursed himself inside for making Steven feel bad. Usually Ned didn't have the least notion of how his words affected others, but there were times when he surprised me.

"It had to be someone who hated her," Gordon suggested.

"Why do you think that?" I asked, interested despite myself.

I killed all the time, but I didn't hate the deer, bear, or mountain lions that I slaughtered. It was more of a compulsion. Instinct took over when I hunted. For the first time I began to wonder why the postmistress had been killed.

"Because whoever he was, he kept bashing at her after she was dead. That's what Peter's uncle told him. He said there wasn't much left of her face when it was done."

"Sorry," he muttered as the girls burst forth with exclamations of disgust.

"So we just have to find out who hated her and we can find the killer!" Ned grinned triumphantly, and polished off the rest of his apple.

"But how do we do that?" Clara asked timidly.

"We'll ask around," said Ned airily. He didn't have any idea how to do it, he simply offered the suggestion and trusted that things would fall into place.

"That's a great idea." Gordon set his now empty tray aside and stretched. "Why should the police have all the fun? I bet we can solve the crime."

"Why not?" shrugged Steve.

Clara and Dorothy began nodding in agreement. Only Harriet had any qualms.

"But if we start asking questions, and the murderer hears about it, won't he come after us? To stop us?" she asked quietly.

"That'll never happen," Ned assured her. "I'll protect you."

Once again he played through his mind's eye the scenario of himself pursuing a prison garbed convict in a mask.

It would have been amusing if not for the fact that Harriet's questions raised concerns within me. If there were a killer on the loose, one who spilled human blood again, this time where I could smell it, would I be able to control myself?

Carlisle had confidence in me. I couldn't afford to let him down. Not now with Esme still in the newborn stage. Moving to avoid suspicion wouldn't just be inconvenient for him, it would be disastrous for her. The farmhouse where we lived was far from any neighboring farms or ranches and was set right next to a mountain range inhabited by a plethora of wildlife. It was literally the end of a road that was clearly marked as a dead end. No chance visitors meant no chance of Esme losing control. Moving to a new home increased the likelihood of Esme coming in contact with humans, and I wasn't sure if Carlisle and I could stop her if her instincts kicked in.

I watched as my classmates made their plans and leaned my head against the tree trunk in back of me, feeling suddenly much older than the four years' lead I had on them. I wouldn't be able to convince them not to investigate. I could only hope not to be drawn in myself.

o-o-o

The blood tasted sweet and salty on my tongue. I raised my head from the antlered buck's throat as the corpse gave a last twitch. I licked my lips and wiped them with the back of my sleeve, letting the deer's body fall to the ground. The blood sang through me, energizing me.

I glanced up at the stars, inhaling deeply. The scent of blood and the fecal matter the deer had expelled during its death throes predominated, but under that was the smell of grass, earth, and pine. From off in the distance I could hear the whine of a wolf, casting about. It caught the scent of death and began moving in my direction. With a sigh, I noticed I'd left a smear of blood on my sleeve. Esme would not be pleased, though she wouldn't chide me. She still spilled plenty of blood herself, but bloodstains were tough to remove no matter who spilled the blood, and Esme insisted on doing the laundry.

Leaving the deer carcass for the wolves to feast upon, I ran to meet up with Carlisle and Esme. They'd agreed to go hunting with me, even though Esme had fed not that long ago and it would be days before Carlisle and I began to feel the urgent need of a hunt.

The talk of murder and the thoughts of the students who'd heard the gory details were getting to me.

I found Carlisle and Esme standing by a stream. Esme's face, sleeves, and shirt front were damp. I grinned. She must have spilled blood all over herself during the hunt and had to wash off in the stream.

"Did you leave any water for me?" I asked, holding up my bloodied sleeve.

"I'll wash that for you at home," Esme promised, coming forward to take a look. "Thank goodness it wasn't one of your school shirts.

"How is school?"

Carlisle's face and thoughts were full of concern for me. He hadn't asked any questions in front of Esme, but I felt I owed them both an explanation.

"It's tolerable, barely," I answered. "All the students and staff can think about is the murder."

Esme tilted her head inquiringly.

"Some of them have some rather vivid imaginations."

Instantly she thought of pools of blood and shivered, not from fear, but hunger and desire. Esme's struggle was ongoing. We were fashioned to crave human blood, always. It was what made us dangerous to the humans and to our own sense of self-control. It took constant vigilance to resist the urge to kill.

"Oh, I see," she said in a low voice. Carlisle put his hand comfortingly on her shoulder.

"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have said anything."

Esme had enough to worry about without me planting thoughts of human blood in her mind.

"No son, we'd rather know what you're going through."

"Always," Esme agreed, and placed her own hand over his, leaning against him in a gesture so unconsciously trusting that I wondered again why Carlisle didn't simply ask her to marry him now.

"I'm fine. Now that I've hunted I won't find their thoughts so distracting."

Esme still looked unconvinced. She was having a hard time envisioning a state where humans weren't a constant temptation.

"Not that Ned's thoughts are anything but amusing. He imagines the killer swans about in a prison uniform and a black mask, rather like a raccoon. His latest fantasy involves dragging the miscreant in to the local police station by the scruff of his neck," I smiled.

"I take it he imagines the murderer to be somewhat smaller than himself?" Carlisle's lips quirked humorously. He'd met Ned when he first brought me to the Headmaster's Office for an interview.

"You know Ned, everything about him is larger than life – in his own eyes."

We took our time getting back to the farmhouse. The moon was a grey and white sliver in the sky, and the night was still, apart from the sounds of small animals scurrying away as they sensed our approach.

Esme asked for my shirt when we arrived and went to the kitchen to start a fire in the stove to heat the water for laundry.

Carlisle took me aside and ushered me into the sitting room, placing his hands on my shoulders to stare into my eyes.

"If it gets too much for you, you can always drop out you know."

I opened my mouth to contradict him, but he shook his head, and thought at me.

'I love you, and I trust you, but you are still young. I know you want to give Esme and I some privacy, but you must realize that your welfare is important to both of us. If she'll have me, we'll have years together, and all the time in the world after we're wed. Please don't feel that you have to be away from us.'

I sighed, allowing my shoulders to slump. It was impossible to argue with Carlisle's well-meaning concern.

"I promise, if it gets to be a problem I'll leave Saint Anselm's immediately."

"Thank you, Edward."

He believed me implicitly, but did I believe it myself? Saint Anselm's was becoming familiar. The humans there were beginning to interest me. I wasn't sure if I wanted to leave, and that surprised and discomforted me. I smiled at Carlisle as reassuringly as I could and made my way up the steps to start on my French homework.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

Days passed and Miss Lucey abandoned poetry for novels.

"So, what do the candlesticks symbolize?" she asked brightly, holding her open copy of Les Miserables in the palm of one hand while noting her place on the page with the index finger of the other.

She needed glasses; she just didn't know it yet. The balancing act with the book was her way of being sure she could return to the passage in question without having to hunt for it.

Ned's hand shot up.

Miss Lucey braced herself mentally and called on him to answer.

"Money! They're silver, right? So they're valuable."

"Yes Ned, they're valuable, but not just in money," the teacher explained patiently. "What else do you think they symbolize?"

"What do you mean?"

Ned's blank look spoke volumes.

Another hand went up, and Miss Lucey nodded at the blue-eyed Irish boy who rarely contributed to class.

"Yes, Sean?"

"Redemption," he said, fixing her with his eyes. "The candlesticks symbolize redemption. The priest used the candlesticks to buy Valjean's freedom. Just like…"

"Just like…?" the teacher echoed encouragingly.

Sean reddened, the color staining his pale complexion and matching his strawberry blonde hair.

"Nothing. I just meant that by giving the candlesticks to him, the priest saved him from prison, that's all."

It wasn't all. Sean intended to make a religious comparison. He was raised Catholic, and had expected that a school with a name like Saint Anselm's would be filled with Catholic students like himself. The school, however, had turned into an elite nondenominational educational facility, leaving its Catholic roots behind.

I looked around the room. Apart from the twins, Sara and Mary, who wore identical crucifixes around their necks, Sean was the only other Catholic in my English class. As I watched, Mary gave Sean a small grin. He turned even redder and glanced away. He was planning to become a priest, and was trying hard to convince himself that girls were an unwanted distraction.

The heightened blood scent was distracting me, so I stopped breathing, resting my mouth and nose against my fist to hide my lack of respiration as I propped an elbow on the desk and stared down at my book.

'_Redemption? How did he get that?' _Ned wondered.

Mary's thoughts registered disappointment at Sean's lack of interest, while Sara's focused on the clouds outside the window. She thought one of them looked like a parrot with a big blue eye.

Blue.

I glanced out the window as well.

Terrific. The cloud cover was breaking up outside. I'd have to eat indoors for lunch.

One of the reasons Carlisle and I chose this school was its location in a deep valley. Clouds tended to fetch up against the towering mountains at the back of the school, creating a heavy layer that covered the valley most days out of the year.

The unseasonably bright weather continued several days in a row. I came early to school, while it was still dark. I spent the lunch hour in the library, and lingered there after school until dusk came and I could make my way to the train station without shimmering.

The weekend came and went and by Monday the skies returned to their uniform grey.

"You're back," Ned said blankly, arriving first at his preferred lunch spot.

'_I thought he'd gone for good,'_ he thought, disappointed. A smile lit his face, and his mood changed completely. _'He missed me!'_

"Yes," I affirmed.

Setting his tray down on the grass, he knelt and grinned up at me.

"Couldn't stay away, could you? Where have you been?"

"Catching up on my reading," I lied. "Les Miserables is a very long book. I've been in the library at lunch."

Ned grimaced.

"You said it. Why'd that Hugo guy have to use so many words? How does Miss Lucey expect us to get through that whole thing on top of everything else we have to do?"

To Ned, "Everything else" referred to practicing baseball after school and figuring out who could build the tallest house of cards in his dorm.

I shrugged as Steven and Gordon appeared, followed by the girls.

The conversation among the boys began to focus on baseball. Gordon remembered every fact and statistic with near religious fervor. The girls lost interest and began their own whispered conversation about a film star they all adored. When they began comparing him to me, I stopped listening.

No one was talking about the postmistress's murder any more. I didn't know whether to be sad or happy about that fact. I thought about Mr. Douglas' face, which I'd seen through the window of the post office as I walked by. He'd taken over his wife's duties until the town could find a replacement, and was doing a passable job.

I didn't think it would last. His thoughts were full of longing for another drink. I sensed them every time I passed by the post office. When he fell into another drunken stupor and lost the job, what would happen to his little girl? Frowning, I realized I didn't even know her name. Children don't think of themselves by name, and I'd never heard her mother or father address her using her christian name. All I knew was the family's surname, Douglas.

"Edward?"

I pulled myself out of my reverie and looked over at Steven, who'd asked me a question.

"Sorry, what did you say?"

"I asked if you wanted to throw a few balls around after school today."

He placed a hand on his leg, as though trying to cover the telltale thinness.

"Steven is a wicked pitcher," Gordon stated.

He glanced over at Ned, who jabbed a thumb into his chest and crowed, "And I'm the best hitter you've ever seen."

No one would ever accuse Ned of modesty.

"I'm sorry, I have to catch the early train home today."

I could see in Steven's thoughts that the offer had been an olive branch, to make up for the way he'd criticized me in my absence during the lunch periods I'd stayed out of the sun. He interpreted my refusal as a rebuff. The offer wouldn't be repeated.

It was a shame, but I couldn't afford to get too close to this group of humans. Simply establishing the habit of pretending to eat lunch with them was as far as I'd intended to go. I hadn't planned on becoming so much a part of their group. I'd make sure not to repeat that mistake in the next school I attended.

o-o-o

A man stood on the train platform, manacled, in shabby clothing. Two policemen stood on either side of him. The small crowd waiting for the train gave them a wide berth. I searched their thoughts and found them all to be focused on the man.

Walter and William Bergstad, brothers who also attended Saint Anselm's, edged closer to me. Walter was a first year and William was a second year.

"Is that him?" Walter asked his brother quietly. "Is that the murderer?"

"I guess," William whispered back.

"He doesn't look like a murderer. He just looks, well, sad."

He also smelled. A slight breeze blew through the train station, swirling the dead leaves which had blown onto the wood planked floor, and making the adults shiver in their coats. The scents that washed over me from the prisoner's direction were of sweat, garbage, and spilled liquor. His thoughts were an equally depressing mix of resignation and humiliation.

"Maybe we should take the next train," William suggested.

"But father said he'd meet us at the station. Won't he be worried if we don't show up on time?"

"You're right."

William cast a last anxious look at the man standing miserably between the two policemen and drew his brother away to the shelter of a support strut at the end of the platform.

"Come over here out of the wind."

I crossed my arms, remembering to act cold as another gust of wind blew past. The thoughts of the men and women waiting for the train were remarkably similar blends of worry, speculation, and a desire to sit as far from the man as possible on the train.

When the train pulled into the station with its usual noisy clanging and clattering, everyone but the police and their prisoner boarded at the far end of the station. Several cast worried looks over their shoulder, wondering if the police would follow them onto the car.

They didn't, preferring to escort their charge onto the car nearest where they stood.

I deliberated a moment, then set off down the station, following them on to the train.

"Mind your step, Jed," the older of the two policemen said.

He was slightly paunchy with grey hair peeking out from under his cap and an old-fashioned handlebar moustache gracing his pink fleshed face. Despite the cold he was sweating slightly. If it came to a fight, he'd be winded and ineffective in moments.

"The name's Jedidiah," the prisoner corrected softly. He stared at his feet as he took the steps up into the train car, lifting his shackled hands up and out of the way as he went.

"Just get in already," the younger policeman snapped, subsiding when he caught sight of the older one's admonishing glare.

The younger one was certain of the man's guilt, and had nothing but contempt for him. The older one was reserving judgment, trusting that the courts and his superior officers in the city would find out the truth.

The police sat the man down in the bench-like seat nearest the door of the car. The prisoner sat nearest the window, the older one sharing his seat, the younger across the aisle. I walked past and took a seat on an empty bench two rows back. I watched as a mother sitting in front of me hefted her young son to her hip and moved further back down the train car. Her main thought was on the prisoner. She recognized him as a drifter who begged for drinking money, and offered to do odd jobs on occasion. Clutching her child close, she kept him on her lap and kissed his cheek.

I shifted my focus to the man in question. His thoughts were still dark.

'It had to happen some day. The police are always picking on me. It was only a matter of time. I could really use a drink. Not much chance of that. I'm doomed.'

William and Walter blundered into the train car from the other end. The only empty seats left were the ones surrounding the prisoner. Reluctantly, William led his little brother forward. He caught sight of the back of my head and shoulders in the distinctive burgundy jacket of Saint Anselm's Academy.

'_It's that upper classman,'_ he thought with relief. _'We'll sit by him.'_

They took the seats across the aisle from me.

Walter gave me an uncertain smile.

I nodded back politely and averted my gaze to stare at the back of Jedidiah's head across the empty seat in front of me. There were lice crawling in his hair.

Taking a book out of my satchel, I pretended to read in order to discourage conversation. It stopped Walter and William from talking to me, but didn't stop them from talking to each other.

"What if he comes back here?" Walter whispered.

"He won't, there's two policemen with him."

"But what if he does?"

"Hush, he can hear you," William hissed.

Their conversation turned to the new Lon Chaney movie, and how they hoped to go see it with their dad.

They got off the train two stops later. As they walked past my window, I could hear William through the glass telling his brother that they were safe, that the murderer was caught and would be going to jail forever.

I closed my book and set it down.

Jedidiah might be going to jail, but after listening to his thoughts for the past half hour I knew something William and Walter did not.

Jedidiah was a drunk who felt guilty over abandoning his wife and son years ago, but he wasn't the murderer.

The real killer was still loose.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

Weeks passed. The fear and speculation surrounding Mrs. Douglas' murder faded with the arrest of the drifter, Jedidiah. His trial was to be held in the city in a few months time. The police had arrested him because he'd been seen in the vicinity of the murder earlier that day, asking the neighbors if they had any odd jobs he could do. He'd also had a bottle of Mrs. Douglas's strawberry wine when the police came to question him. Evidently she was famous for the beverage and won prizes at the county fair every year for it.

Jedidiah's story was that he'd gone to her door to late that afternoon to ask about a job. She'd given him the wine as a gift and sent him away without hiring him. No one believed that she'd part with a bottle of her precious wine. I didn't believe it either. Jedidiah quite likely stole it from the storm cellar. It was just his bad luck that the broken lock on the storm cellar door was found near Mrs. Douglas' body in the side yard of her home. With the lack of any other suspects, the police focused on Jedidiah as the culprit.

Or so Peter's uncle, Officer Fletcher, opined. Peter spilled the details of the investigation to his friends who spread them around the school. Since the wheels of justice ground slowly in the city, the humans became complacent once again.

That suited me just fine. The last thing I needed was for everyone, adults and students included, regarding each other with suspicion. Carlisle assured me that I looked like a normal seventeen year old. I didn't feel "normal". If they only knew how easily I could kill them, the fragile creatures surrounding me would recoil in shock.

'_Monsieur Sieyes is nothing compared to Edward. How could I have ever liked him?'_ Clara wondered as she delivered a note from the office to the unfortunate French teacher.

The teacher, oblivious to her poor opinion, thanked her with a "Merci, Mademoiselle," and set the note down on his desk, then went back to conjugating verbs on the chalkboard.

Clara stared at me as she left, knocking her shoulder into the doorjamb because she wasn't paying attention.

'_Ow, that hurt!'_ she thought while she giggled self-deprecatingly. She stepped back and made it through the doorway safely on her second try.

Yvonne smiled in sympathy, thinking that she would've probably done the very same thing, and snuck a glance my way. I pretended not to see it.

Monsieur Sieyes heard Clara's giggle and shot a severe look at the back of her retreating head. He thought she might be laughing at what he was writing on the board. Checking his work, he couldn't find anything amusing about the verb forms in English or in French so he shrugged it off and continued to write.

His mind began to wander to his wife. She was pregnant and the pregnancy was doing interesting things to her figure. I shuddered and focused my attention on the thoughts of the new boy in the class. I'd already mastered the verbs written on the board, I just needed to hear them in order to get the pronunciation down.

Hartley Saunders joined Saint Anselm's Academy a few days after the murder. He was a competent student, quiet, mysterious to the other students, and very good at sports. Ned Shelton immediately considered him a rival. Several girls professed themselves in love with him.

He, on the other hand, was too wrapped up in depression to notice them. He hated it at Saint Anselm's, and only attended the school because his father decided to move the family after his mother committed suicide.

Hartley was the one who'd found her, hanging from a rafter in the kitchen. He thought of it often. Thankfully his mother chose hanging rather than slicing open a vein or shooting herself. I don't think I could've taken another bout of bloody imagination such as the ones I'd been subjected to after the postmistress's murder. Even so, the regularity of the image in his mind was disturbing. His mother's death, rather than the postmistress's death, was what consumed him. He'd been in town during the murder, but his father hadn't let him come to school until the presumed murderer was caught.

At lunch Ned held court from his usual spot in the patio.

"Did you see that?"

Ned held up two hands, with a fly smashed between the palms.

"I got it."

Harriet rolled her eyes and took a bite out of her apple while Clara, Dorothy, Steven, and Gordon exclaimed dutifully.

"Bet Hartley Saunders can't do that," he muttered, wiping the fly carcass into the grass.

Ned was jealous of Saunders. Ever since he'd discovered that the boy was just as good at baseball as he was, he was determined to best him.

It was petty and ridiculous, especially since Hartley didn't realize there was a competition going on between them.

I leaned back against my favorite tree and let the conversation swirl around me. Lunch ended. During English class it began to rain.

Miss Lucey was thrilled.

'_What perfect weather for discussing the sewer scene,'_ she thought as she read out loud the part where Valjean carries Marius through the sewers of Paris and confronts Javert.

I noticed that she tended to read the parts she liked best herself, rather than allowing the students to read those bits. Not that I minded. Miss Lucey infused her words with a dramatic inflection that none of my fellow students were interested enough to emulate. I'd finished reading the book already.

'_Bet it stunk to high heaven in that sewer,'_ Ned was thinking. _'Bet there was all sorts of poop floating in that water too.'_

'I wonder if the sewers are a metaphor for hell?' wondered Sean as he began to read ahead. _'Javert sure is devilish.'_

'That's a lot of rain. Thank goodness Mary and I won't have to walk home in it. It's nice living at the school. Poor Edward. He's going to get soaked when he leaves to go home.'

Sara glanced over at me and sighed quietly.

'_He's so handsome. I wonder if he even knows I'm alive?'_

I licked my lips and concentrated on the words printed in my book. Did I know she was alive? I was uncomfortably aware of every living human being in my immediate proximity. Sara's blood thrummed through her veins, enticing, tempting, calling out to me.

'_Valjean is so heroic to carry Marius. I really like him. How can Javert be so mean?'_ wondered Mary. _'I wish he'd been shot at the barricade instead of Eponine.'_

Hiding a smile, I allowed Mary's thoughts of vengeance against Javert distract me.

Hartley was in the library when I arrived for my independent study period. I didn't have a physical education class, and Hartley took private fencing lessons with Mr. Chin instead of regular phys. ed. so we both had a study period while the rest of the third years were engaged in sports. With the rain thudding against the windows, I figured they were indoors in the gymnasium today.

Hartley nodded at me when I sat down at the far end of the table where he'd spread out his books. He was about my height, with light brown hair and hazel eyes.

'_He's so pale,'_ he thought. _'Has he been ill?'_

I cleared my throat to reinforce Hartley's guess, and opened my French book. He only pictured his mother's body twice that period. That was down from the six times he'd thought about it the day before. As study periods went, it was a good one.

After my piano class with Miss Wentworth, I was done for the day. I told her that I practiced every day at home, yet she was still amazed at my ability to memorize the pieces of music she chose for me. I'd have to make some more errors to seem more human. I cringed at the thought of mangling Chopin.

Sara was right. I was drenched by the time I reached the train station. The overhang did little to protect the platform from the driving rain, so I wandered inside where the scent of wet wool and muddy boots predominated. Men and women sat miserably on the seats provided while the stationmaster muttered to himself as he hung the telephone's earpiece back on its cradle.

"I'm sorry folks," he said, coming out from behind the ticket counter. "There's been a mudslide across the tracks. They're cleaning it now but it'll be a two hour delay at least. You're all welcome to settle here to wait."

Groans and muffled curses met his announcement. I saw in his thoughts that it would probably be a three hour delay and resigned myself to wait it out at the station.

"Monsieur Cullen, is it?"

The cultured tone of my French teacher reached me as I turned in pretend surprise. I'd heard his thoughts before he caught sight of me. Not many people in the environs of Saint Anselm's Academy thought in French.

"Yes, sir."

"You are soaked to the skin," he noted disapprovingly.

"I'll be fine. It's just a little rain."

The last thing I needed was a teacher fussing over me.

"Mais non! You will catch cold. You haven't even a hat. Come, share my umbrella. I am going back to the school to wait. You can't stay here. You'll become ill."

Everyone else in the station was bundled up. The light overcoat I'd thrown on over my school uniform seemed flimsy in comparison. I could stay in the drafty room pretending to shiver or go with Monsieur Sieyes. The other option of abandoning the station to run home wasn't viable. The stationmaster could hear our conversation, and he'd expect me back to board the train once the line opened up again.

"Yes, Monsieur," I said meekly and ducked under the umbrella as he opened it.

Shoving my hands in my pockets, I trudged beside him on the wood planked walkway. We passed the post office in silence. The light was on inside and Mr. Withers, the replacement for Mrs. Douglas, peered out at us. Mr. Douglas hadn't worked out as a postal employee. He and his daughter moved to Boston where he had family. Hopefully they'd care for the little girl better than he could.

The silence was becoming awkward for Sieyes. He was one of those teachers who was most comfortable in front of a class, but at a loss when it came to one on one conversation outside of the classroom.

Taking pity on him, I spoke.

"Why were you at the train station, Monsieur Sieyes? Were you going somewhere?"

An image of his wife, thankfully clothed this time around, popped into his mind.

"I was meeting Madame Sieyes. Her train was due twenty minutes ago. It must be delayed from the mud. She was visiting her sister in Knoxville."

He missed her. He knew that she had to visit before her pregnancy made travel impossible. He also knew that the sister didn't like or approve of him, and he was anxious about his wife's state of mind.

"Knoxville? So Madame Sieyes isn't French?"

"Ah, no."

He wrenched his thoughts away from his sister in law's interfering ways.

"I met my wife here, in America."

I saw another image of his wife. In this one she was wearing a white shirtwaist with a long narrow blue skirt, the type women were still wearing at the end of the war. She carried a lace parasol and clutched it with lace glove covered hands. She was smiling gently.

He'd loved her from the moment he saw her. Prim, proper, fastidious Monsieur Sieyes had seen her as an angel of sanity in a world torn apart by war. The fact that she was a good deal younger than him meant nothing. He'd pursued her with a romantic fervor that none of his students, save me, would ever have guessed him capable.

I couldn't see her thoughts of course, and I didn't know if his feelings were requited, but I hoped they were.

The man walking next to me wasn't as handsome as Carlisle. His hair was already showing signs of grey at the temples, and he was on the slight side. There was, however, something about his thoughts towards his wife that were very similar to Carlisle's thoughts about Esme.

As we spoke about Knoxville, I pondered the similarities. Both Carlisle and Monsieur Sieyes were killers. Sieyes had killed men during the war, while Carlisle restricted his killing to animals. Both were distressed, disgusted even, at the need to kill, yet both had overcome the horror of what they'd become to find happiness.

I doubted I ever would. I lacked Carlisle's limitless compassion. He truly cared for the humans he treated. I still saw them as temptations that I needed to overcome. I could appreciate Monsieur Sieyes' love for his wife, just as I appreciated Jean Valjean's plight in Les Miserables, but it had nothing to do with me or my constant struggle. I was a phony, a sham. I could pretend to be human, but I wasn't really one of them.

"Eh Voila," said Monsieur Sieyes. "Here we are."

We stood at the steps of the main school building.

"Would you like to wait here or at my cottage?"

He was hoping desperately that I'd choose the school. He'd put flowers in a vase for his wife to see when she returned home to the staff cottage they'd been assigned when he was hired on at Saint Anselm's. He didn't want me to see them, or the love note he'd left for her with a heart drawn on it.

"Here, I think. I'll see if I can borrow an umbrella when I check back at the station. Thank you, Monsieur Sieyes."

I ducked out from under the umbrella and hurried, human speed, up the stone steps.

"It was nothing. Au revoir," he called out and began marching down the path leading to the staff housing area.

There was a sound that didn't belong outside in the rain. I heard the crack of a bat coming from behind the main building. Curious, I waited until Monsieur Sieyes' umbrella disappeared then made my way in the opposite direction down the gravel path that led across the front of the main school building and between the boy's dorm, which formed one arm of the 'U' shaped configuration of the school and the library.

The crack came again.

Walking faster now, I passed the library and rounded the tennis courts. There before me lay the athletic field.

Their thoughts alerted me to their identities before their sight or scents could. It was Ned Shelton and Steven Dereuter.

'_Got to get better. Got to beat that Saunders kid,'_ was the litany going through Ned's mind.

He was standing across from Steven, holding a bat, careless of the rain which had soaked his uniform.

'_I can't believe I let Ned talk me into this…again,'_ thought Steven. He was sitting on a stool at the pitcher's mound, wearing a yellow rain slicker and hat and scowling as he wound up for another pitch.

There was a half empty bucket of balls at his feet. Despite the awkward position atop the stool, his aim was true. The ball shot right over the plate and into Ned's swing.

Another 'crack' rent the air and the ball went high over Steven's head.

"I got it!" yelled Ned.

"Yep," affirmed Steven.

"Let's go again."

Steven reached for another ball, and I turned to go.

Ned might be simple-minded, but he had a goal. He was happy when attempting to achieve it. What goal did I have apart from not slaughtering my schoolmates?

Feeling an emptiness that had nothing to do with hunger, I turned and left them to their practice.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter five

It rained again the next day, and the train pulled into the station late. I made it to school on time by walking a good bit faster than human speed, but since the steady drizzle kept most humans indoors, no one noticed. As I hurried to class, I let the sounds and thoughts of the people wash over me.

Billy Hendrickson was breaking up with his girlfriend, Flossie Evigan, in the central stairwell, so I took the side stairs instead. Flossie was beginning to cry and wondering what she'd tell her friends.

'_Why do girls always take things so personally?'_ Billy thought in disgust. _'I'm just not interested anymore.'_

Passing the nurse's office, I overheard her commiserating with a female student, one who reeked of blood. I stopped breathing as I walked by, and swallowed back the reflexive rush of venom that always accompanied that smell.

"I know exactly how you feel, dear. The cramping can be most uncomfortable. I find that headache powders can relieve some of the pain. Would you like me to mix you up a dose?"

"Thanks ever so much, Miss Lowell. I can't miss French class today. I have a test."

It was Molly Birgen, a fourth year student. What she wasn't telling Miss Lowell was that she couldn't bear to miss a chance to sit next to Theodore Drury, a boy she liked. The only class they shared was advanced French.

"Even if you drink this down right now," Nurse Lowell warned as I heard her pour the medicinal powder into a glass of water and stir, "it won't start working for several minutes. Are you sure you feel up to attending class?"

"I'll be fine," Molly assured her brightly, while groaning inside and thinking about the agony in her nether regions.

Grimacing, I walked faster, I couldn't afford to be distracted. Class was about to start. The section of the school building I was in had been renovated in years past. Though the hallway ran in a straight line now instead of in a dogleg, it was still faster to duck down the steps and use the servants' corridor back to the side stairs and so I did. The smell of laundry soap and steam assaulted my nose.

"Look at this! Will you look at these mud and grass stains!"

The laundry mistress was in fine form today, enraged over a piece of clothing.

"Those little monsters oughtn't to be out without a leash. This isn't a baseball uniform, or a basketball uniform. Those dirty dogs were out playing in their school clothes. How can I be expected to get these stains out by tomorrow?"

"Oh you'll manage somehow, you always do," Mrs. Cade soothed her boss, the ever-irate Mrs. Tuttle.

"I shouldn't have to manage," Mrs. Tuttle snapped. "When I get my hands on those boys…"

"You'll give them a right tongue lashing, I'm sure, but for now how about using some soda mixed with bleach? If we let it set for a bit, that might do the trick."

Distracted, Mrs. Tuttle allowed herself to be calmed. Even though Mrs. Tuttle was the older of the two by a decade, she threw tantrums like a two year old. It was the younger, Mrs. Cade, who kept the laundry on track. The students lived in fear of Mrs. Tuttle, preferring to throw themselves on Mrs. Cade's mercy whenever they had a laundry emergency. I wondered idly which poor student was going to be scolded by Mrs. Tuttle this time.

"Mr. Cullen, Aren't you going to be late for class?"

It was just my bad luck that Mr. Clarence, the Headmaster, was returning to his office using the laundry corridor.

"Yes sir. Sorry, I was taking a shortcut," I muttered, and quickened my stride.

He was about to reprimand me for being in the servants' area of the school Mrs. Tuttle's angry voice caught his attention. Ignoring me, he moved towards the laundry room. No one else was around, so I hurtled down the hallway and up the back stairs, making it to the doorway of my math class just as the bell rang.

Mr. Pitcairn raised an eyebrow at me, but said nothing so I ducked my head and was the last one to join the students already sitting down at their desks.

Yvonne beamed at me, to make up for Mr. Pitcairn's disapproval.

'_He shouldn't be so mean to Edward. He made it by the bell,'_ she thought to herself.

"Mr. North, explain if you would, how to solve problem number one from the homework."

Mr. Pitcairn chose the bleary-eyed basketball team captain on purpose, guessing that he'd neglected to do the homework. Ronald North had done the homework, but couldn't remember where he'd put it. As he fumbled through his book, the teacher noticed Yvonne gazing at me.

"Miss Briscoe, since Mr. North appears incapable of finding his assignment, perhaps you'd be so good as to enlighten us instead."

Ronald groaned and increased his efforts to find the missing paper while Yvonne gulped and sent a panicky glance my way.

In a quivering voice she recounted the steps she'd used to solve the problem. She'd done it correctly, but Mr. Pitcairn made her, and the rest of the class, wait for a moment as he stared expressionlessly.

Then he smiled and nodded, the quick curve of his lips lighting up his normally austere face.

"Very good Miss Briscoe. It seems someone is taking mathematics seriously."

Yvonne sighed in relief, and class continued.

Another student sighed in relief as well. Ronald had slipped off campus to buy bootleg liquor from a farmer last night since the local tavern refused to sell to Saint Anselm's students. He was experiencing a hangover of epic proportions, which is the main reason he couldn't find his homework paper at first. He swore to himself that he'd never drink again as he smoothed the paper in front of him and tried to concentrate. I wondered if his resolve would last as long as Mr. Douglas's had.

Not for the first time I wondered how Carlisle could empathize with these fallible, fragile creatures. All I wanted to do was feed off of them. Swallowing back venom at the thought, I steeled myself for another day of self-denial.

Luck was not with me. It was dissection day in biology class.

Since the rain had stopped at this point, they opened the windows to disperse the fumes. The formaldehyde stench masked the remaining blood scent in the frogs, but enough remained to distract me. I accidentally bent the handle of the scalpel when I gripped it too hard. I had to bend it back into shape under the lab table while my partner, Miriam Hunter, scribbled our findings in her lab book.

Miriam's idol was Madame Curie. She was determined to become a scientist and thus far that resolve kept her from fixating on me as most of the female students did. She was calm, steady minded and painstaking to the point where there was always a pause before she responded to questions. Miriam had to think things through before committing herself to speech or action. I admired her for it, for even though it was irritating to have to wait longer for replies than usual when engaging in a conversation, the replies were worth waiting for. Well, they would have been if I hadn't already heard them in her mind as she formulated them. Carlisle, Esme, and I often spoke so quickly among ourselves that no human could have kept up.

"Are you feeling alright, Edward?"

Miriam's question was no surprise. She'd been thinking I looked distracted as I returned the scalpel handle to its proper shape.

She glanced down at the frog splayed on the tray in front of us, then back to my face, wondering if it was bothering me. I decided to play into her assumption.

"I'm a bit…squeamish," I said with a smile.

Smiling tended to disarm the females.

Miriam stared at me for a moment, then blinked.

"You should have said so," she scolded. She brushed a stray lock of her dark auburn hair out of her eyes and tucked it beneath the scarf she'd used to tie it back from her face. "I would have handled the dissection for you."

"That's alright," I told her, setting the scalpel back on the table. "I feel much better now."

She processed that for a moment, then asked, "Are you sure?"

She stared at me uncertainly, noting how pale my face was. It was annoying really how often people leapt to the conclusion that I was ill.

Nodding, I reached for the lab book.

"Did you note that it was a male?"

She hesitated, surprised by my question. I'd never double-checked her work before. I didn't have to since everything she wrote down was filtered through her mind beforehand, and I could read her entries so to speak by reading her mind.

"Of course, see, right there."

She pointed to the first paragraph and proceeded to talk me through what she'd written, pausing as she always did between sentences. Soon it was time to clean up, then off to French class where Monsieur Sieyes indulged himself in fantasies about his wife while we took a quiz. Blocking him out wasn't just a matter of good taste, but necessity.

The test in history took all period long writing at human speed. Then it was on to lunch.

"Mrs. Tuttle is scary," Steven was saying as he and Ned reached the lunch area.

"She doesn't scare me," Ned lied.

I could see that she'd had Ned and Steven called to the headmaster's office so she could berate them for sneaking their dirty clothes into the hamper after hours.

"She scares everyone else," Steven muttered. "She's worse than the head cook."

An image of the steely eyed, rotund chef, Mr. Perry, filled Ned's mind.

"Aw, he's not so bad."

To Ned, anyone who gave him food was automatically an ally.

"He's a genius with stew," contributed Gordon, bringing up the rear as he balanced his food tray carefully to avoid sloshing the noxious smelling liquid out of its bowl.

They sat on the damp edge of a planter by where I'd set my empty food tray. The girls, Dorothy, Clara, and Harriet, came later. In the cold, clean air, I caught the blood scent as they came closer. The day was turning out to be temptation upon temptation.

The scent was coming from Clara. She'd ripped a hangnail loose and a tiny drop of blood welled up and hardened like a cabochon cut ruby. I could see it by the nail bed of her index finger where she gripped her tray.

It was a darker, more enticing red than her carrot colored locks, darker still than the freckles dotting her pale skin. I wanted it. I wanted her blood.

Backing away, I muttered some excuse as my mouth filled with venom.

She was human, a child really. Louisa said she kept dolls in her room.

I turned my back and forced myself to walk at a slow human speed into the trees at the edge of the patio.

I checked the girls' thoughts, but all I found was disappointment that I was leaving, and disgust at the sodden state of their favorite bench. They either hadn't noticed the expression on my face or hadn't realized what they were seeing was a dangerous hunger.

The trees dripped the remains of the storm's moisture on my head and shoulders. I sensed another human ahead of me. It was Hartley Saunders.

He was standing at the edge of the property, staring up at the wall which separated the school from the forest beyond.

He was crying, not sobbing out loud, just letting the salt scented tears roll down his cheeks.

His thoughts were a destructive mass of grief, horrified memory, and self-recrimination. He blamed himself for his mother's death, for not noticing her unhappiness. The image of his mother's face, bloated, the tongue purpled in death, bulging out, eyes bloodshot, played over and over in his mind like a film rewound and replayed again and again.

I could end his suffering. I could kill him, pick up his corpse and jump over the wall, hide it in the forest then come back after school to bury it somewhere far away. It would be so easy.

It would be a betrayal of everything Carlisle had taught me.

Carlisle insisted that I wasn't a monster, that I could rise above my instincts.

Backing away, I left Hartley to his grief.

o-o-o

"I need to hunt," I announced as I walked through the door.

Esme looked up in surprise. She was usually the one making that statement. Until her newborn phase was complete, she needed to hunt more often than Carlisle or I did.

Carlisle took one look at my face and nodded.

"Let's go."

Without a word, Esme dropped the book she'd been reading and joined us at the door, excited anticipation clearly visible in her eyes.

Together we ran through the meadow strewn foothills and up into the mountains. We splashed through mud, careened off boulders. It was exhilarating to be outside, running without restraint, without worrying that humans might see. I reveled in the speed.

There was a herd of deer bounding away from us. Carlisle glanced at me as he ran by my side.

"Take them. I want something more challenging."

He grinned at me, and leapt away. Esme followed.

I kept going until I found what I was looking for.

The mountain lion growled as it sensed my approach, lifting its head from its own prey, a rabbit. The cat's instinct was to protect its kill so it stayed in place, its growl becoming progressively louder.

I growled back, letting the more predatory of my instincts out.

Then I charged.

The cat reared back on its hind legs, swiping with claws that shredded my shirt and scrabbled across my shoulder. I gripped it in a bear hug, ignoring the teeth that tried to gnaw at my neck, teeth that couldn't find purchase anywhere. Its hind legs came up to rake against my stomach. A claw caught momentarily on my belt buckle, then slipped off.

Falling back, I pulled the snarling beast down on top of me then rolled, pinning it beneath me. Baring my own teeth I plunged them down on the cat's neck, ripping open a vein and drinking quickly, unmindful of its frantic attempts to maul me. When I was done, the cat was a limp corpse, and my clothes were in tatters.

I sat down by its cooling body and wiped my mouth with the back of my hand, then grinned. My shirt wasn't salvageable, so why not use it?

Ripping off the cuff of my school uniform shirt, I used it like a napkin and did a more thorough job of cleaning my mouth.

The mountain lion's body was cooling. I placed my hand on top of its head.

My mother, my human mother, kept a cat when I was growing up. My memory of it was hazy, but I thought it had been a tortoise shell color, a mix of black and orange. The orange of that cat's fur was far more vibrant than the tawny shade of the mountain lion I'd killed. I couldn't remember if I'd liked, hated, or been indifferent to my mother's pet.

I took my hand away. The mountain lion wasn't a pet. It was now just another dead animal. Soon the scavengers of the forest would find its remains and dispose of them.

I wondered how Carlisle and Esme were doing. It was time to return to them.

As I ran back the way I came, I caught the scent of a human and skidded to a stop. What was a human doing out in the mountains in the growing dark? Inhaling the air, I caught another scent, the acrid smoke of a wood fire. Someone was camping in the hills.

'_Esme!'_

I registered Carlisle's frantic thought as I heard him, plunging after her, knocking down trees in his wake.

I ran, not towards him, but towards the smell of fire and human, for I knew that was where she was headed. She couldn't help herself. Her thoughts weren't remotely human, she was operating on sheer animal instinct, and that instinct was telling her to kill.

Carlisle always said I was faster than he was. I'd proved it in many races against him, but not even I could outrun a newborn on a mission. I cut across a gorge, leaping through the air to land, fingers crushing holes into the rock cliff opposite. I scaled it quickly then pounded my way down the other side and up the next mountain to where the smoke from the campfire was wafting up into the sky.

I'd almost made it when the scent of blood splashed across my senses. It was like a slap in the face. It would have been overwhelming if I hadn't just fed. Esme caught up with the human before I did.

I was too late.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter six

Esme raised her head from the corpse's throat and growled at me just as Carlisle skidded to a stop on the ledge outside the cave where the man had set up camp.

A haversack lay open by the campfire. In his death throes the man had kicked the logs apart. His pant leg still smoldered as it lay half in, half out of the ring of rocks he'd set up to contain his fire.

His mouth was open, and his dead eyes stared up at the sky, past Esme's blood stained mouth as she crouched by his side.

Esme's gaze shifted from me to Carlisle, then back again. Her eyes narrowed, and her hands clenched the man's torso so hard that I heard his ribs crack.

The sound seemed to awaken her from her bloodlust. She blinked and looked down.

Horror filled her face and her thoughts. She pulled her hands back from the gory mess and jumped to her feet.

"Carlisle, what have I done?"

He was at her side in an instant, cradling her in his arms, kissing her hair, and whispering soothing words in her ear.

"It's alright Esme, everything is going to be fine. You couldn't help yourself. It's not your fault."

She let out a tearless sob and buried her face in his shoulder. I envied her that. Women seemed to accept comfort more easily than men. When Carlisle first turned me, I'd rejected his attempts to comfort me. Of course the situation was different. He wasn't in love with me, nor I with him. We'd settled into a relationship of mutual respect and affection. I relied on him for advice, guidance, and companionship, and he felt towards me the way he would towards a son.

That didn't mean that we embraced often. That wasn't our way. Esme, on the other hand, clung to Carlisle naturally without a hint of self-consciousness.

Aware that I was staring, I glanced away and knelt by the body of the human she'd killed. He stank, like the drifter Jedidiah. He hadn't washed in several weeks, and his clothes were filthy. A bushy grey beard covered most of his face. It matched the full head of wiry grey hair he sported. Liver spots on his cheekbones and hands proclaimed him to be old, and by the tan on his flesh, he'd lived outdoors for quite a while.

Had I ever been that tan? I dimly remembered my mother taking me to the sea shore as a child but little beyond that. Carlisle and I didn't frequent the shore during the summer months for obvious reasons. Camping out by the sea wasn't what we did on vacation. My musings gave me an idea.

"Edward, where are you going?" Carlisle asked.

I looked back at him over my shoulder as I crouched by the cave opening.

"I'm just checking something," I replied and crawled into the space.

The cave was triangle shaped, ending in a sharp point where the rounded ceiling met the sandy rock floor of the ledge. It was really just a mass of rock overhanging the ledge, creating an air pocket. It created the perfect dry storage place for, yes, there they were.

I reached out and pulled the animal traps to me. This had been a business trip of sorts. The man was a trapper, like I'd read about in pioneer novels. He made his living trapping animals and selling the pelts.

How ironic that a hunter should become the prey.

Shaking the thought away, I dragged the traps out into the open.

Esme was more composed now, standing next to Carlisle. He kept his arm around her shoulder protectively.

"Edward, I'm so sorry."

I shrugged. I wasn't the one she should be apologizing to. Not that an apology would do the corpse at her feet much good. The blood she'd left on his ruined throat was a distraction. I made sure to breathe through my mouth only as I drew in air to speak.

"You're a newborn Esme. These things happen."

She swallowed, and loathed herself for relishing the residual taste of blood in her mouth.

Carlisle sensed her distress and turned her to face him, his hands on her shoulders.

"I told you before, you have to expect slip ups from time to time. You're new at this life, Esme. Control will come in time."

He was making a conscious effort to put as much conviction as he could into his eyes and expression.

Esme wasn't having it. She looked down at her feet.

"But now we'll have to move, and it's all my fault," she said softly.

Carlisle pulled her gently into an embrace, folding his arms around her back.

"It's not your fault, it's mine for not noticing the human sooner. I should have been between you and the man. I should have stopped you."

Stop her? I repressed an urge to laugh at the thought. Esme was a newborn. She would've plowed through him like a locomotive to get to the trapper. It's what I would've done at that stage.

"If we're assigning blame, then it's my fault," I told them. "I'm the one who suggested hunting."

Carlisle was stung. He thought I'd taken his words as criticism about not noticing the human sooner. _'Edward,'_ he thought at me. _'I wasn't trying to assign blame, I'm just attempting to make Esme feel better. Neither of us could have known there was a human in these mountains.'_

Nodding to show him I understood, I continued to speak out loud so Esme could hear me.

"Look, it's not as bad as it seems. The man was a trapper."

I held up the clanking metal contraptions then threw them down by the body before continuing.

"Trappers are out in the wilds for long periods of time. It could be months, years even before he's missed. We might not have to move."

Esme remained slumped against Carlisle's chest, but moved her face to look at me, hope in her eyes.

"Do you really think so?" she asked.

"Of course," I bluffed.

I was going off what I'd read in fictional novels about trappers and frontiersmen. Thanks to James Fennimore Cooper and his lot, the frontier novels were popular. I wasn't sure, however, how factual they were.

Neither was Carlisle. I could hear the doubt in his mind. We'd have to investigate this particular trapper.

"I'm sure Edward is right. Come along, let's get you home. Edward, can you clean up here?" he asked.

"Of course."

Not that I had much of a choice. We were pretty high up on the mountain, but it wouldn't do for a scavenging creature to pick up a hand and run off with it for the other humans to find. The other animals would have to make do with the mountain lion and deer carcasses we'd left behind in our hunt.

"Thank you," Esme said softly, and gave me a tremulous smile as she took Carlisle's outstretched hand and followed him to the ledge.

She threw one last look over her shoulder at the corpse, and I didn't need to be a mind reader to sense her longing mixed with self-hatred. It was all in her eyes.

"Are you ready?" Carlisle asked, tugging her hand gently.

"Yes," she nodded.

Together they jumped off the rock, preferring to take the direct route down rather than the circuitous trail that the human had used to get up to his campground.

I heard them land far below, and didn't need to glance over the edge to know that they'd landed safely. Carlisle was thinking of what to say to Esme when they got back to the farmhouse, and Esme was dreading the lecture she thought was coming. Really, she was being much harder on herself than Carlisle could ever be.

We were killers. It was our nature to prey on living beings. Carlisle had taught us to be discriminating in our kills, but the urge to hunt would always be there. He knew it, he just chose to believe we could master our instincts.

Sighing, I gathered up the haversack, traps, and the corpse and leapt further up the mountain to find a place to bury them which would be inaccessible to humans. The human's blood smeared on the back yoke of my shirt because of the way I'd slung the body over my shoulder. It smelled enticingly sweet. Carlisle owed me a huge favor in return for this one.

Back at the house I found Carlisle and Esme sitting quietly in the parlor. Carlisle had built a fire in our rarely used fireplace, probably in an attempt to create a cheery atmosphere since we didn't need the warmth. He was staring into the flames dancing on the logs as he sat in the winged armchair by the fire while Esme, in the flanking armchair, clutched a rose colored pillow to her chest.

They both looked up as I entered. Their conversation hadn't gone well. I saw from Carlisle's thoughts that he was already planning the move. Esme was still blaming herself, waxing nostalgic over one of the slipcovers she'd embroidered for the ottoman pillows. She thought we'd have to leave everything behind.

I opened my mouth to speak, then thought better of starting a conversation while I stood in bloodstained tatters.

"I'll be back," I told them, and whisked myself off to the kitchen where I started a fire in the wood stove, which we used even less than the fireplace, and shucked off my shirt to feed it to the flames.

Esme had already changed clothes, and with my bloodstained shirt disposed of, we could talk without the smell of blood to distract us.

Using water from the kitchen sink, I washed and dried my neck, arms, and torso, using the tea towels Esme insisted on hanging everywhere in the room. The woman had very clear notions of how rooms should look, even when no one would see them but us.

I dashed back to my room to pull a sweater over my head, but decided to leave my trousers alone. Apart from a few gashes near my right hip where the mountain lion's claws had scored, they were relatively intact. Besides, the sweater was long and covered most of the damage.

"There's something you should know," I announced as I walked into the parlor.

"What is it?" Esme asked without a hint of hope in her voice.

I had to hand it to Carlisle. Esme always looked lovely, but with the firelight picking up the highlights in her caramel colored hair, she appeared angelic. Some of Carlisle's infinite kindness must have rubbed off on me, because I felt a rush of compassion for her.

"You can put the pillow down," I teased her gently. "It and you will be staying here for quite some time."

"What do you mean?" Carlisle got to his feet, and stood in front of the fire.

"I noticed something when I was burying the trapper," I answered. "There was a sort of knobby projection on his upper thigh. He'd broken a bone and it healed badly. That kind of injury would have put him out of work for a year at least."

"But what does that mean for…us?"

Esme had been about to say 'me' but thought better of it. She didn't want to seem selfish. It was one of the things I liked about this woman Carlisle had chosen to be his mate. She was learning to think of us as a family.

"It means the trapper likely lost his usual lines to his competitors. He's a stranger to this area, trying to start new trap lines, so I doubt anyone knew he was coming here."

"But wouldn't he have told his friends, or family where he was going?" Carlisle asked reluctantly.

He didn't want to leave the farmhouse and expose Esme to more possible temptation, but he was also inflexible when it came to volturi law. When a vampire's kills became obvious they had to move on. No vampire could risk exposure, not ever.

"No," I shook my head slowly. "Trappers tend to be loners. A man that old, still out in the wilds, instead of retired probably doesn't have family left, and trappers don't tell other trappers where they are going, not unless they want their trap lines poached."

"It sounds like a very lonely sort of life," Esme said slowly.

She was beginning to wonder about the man she'd killed. The guilt was eating her up inside.

"Well, not if you like living outdoors I suppose," I answered awkwardly. I knew Esme was imagining the trapper as a sort of noble hermit.

"Did the man have any identification with him?" Carlisle asked.

"No."

I thought of the haversack with its pathetic supply of food, water, a blanket and cooking utensils. There were no books, letters, and not so much as a library card with his name on it. For all I knew, the man could've been illiterate.

"We could just wait and see if he's missed," I suggested. "If no one comes looking for him, we'll know we're safe."

'_No one is safe from me,'_ Esme thought. I noticed she'd clutched the pillow tighter, so I walked over and perched on the armrest of her chair. She looked up at me in surprise.

"You're safe with us," I told her. "We'll do whatever we have to do to protect you, won't we Carlisle?"

He was thinking as he moved towards her that he was proud of me for comforting her. He knelt by her feet, and took her hands.

"Yes, whatever it takes. You're part of our family now, Esme. We care very much for you. I'll go tomorrow and see what I can find out about the man. If Edward is right and he had no friends or family to miss him, then we'll stay here and things will go on just as they have."

"You're leaving?"

Esme's panic was unmistakable, and Carlilse winced as she gripped his hands a bit too enthusiastically.

"Oh, sorry," she said, relaxing her grip.

He smiled. "It's alright Esme. No one expects you to be perfect. You're still learning."

He sent a mental appeal to me.

"That's right," I complied. "During my first year I broke more furniture than you did. I couldn't play the piano for months because I kept crushing the keys."

"Really?" Esme was ready and willing to be distracted by stories of my past, so I complied, telling her of all the stupid mistakes I'd made as a newborn until she was back to her laughing pleasant self.

The next morning Carlisle left.

"What are you going to do?" I asked as he shrugged into his overcoat and grabbed an umbrella from the stand by the door.

"I'll pose as a buyer for a fur coat company, ask around for the best pelts, and say that I got some good ones several years ago from a man matching the trapper's description. I'll say I've been out of the country and lost track of him."

"Won't they be suspicious that you don't know his name?"

Carlisle gave me a quick grin. "I'll say I've forgotten it, or that I was drunk when we made the transaction."

"You, drunk?" I questioned in disbelief.

"I've been around enough town drunks to know the symptoms. They usually wind up in hospitals, you know."

He became serious, and clasped my shoulder, speaking quietly, hoping Esme wouldn't hear.

"I'll need you to stay home while I'm gone, to keep an eye on Esme. I'll stop by the school on my way to tell them we've a family illness and not to expect you for several days."

I nodded. I'd already seen that plan in his thoughts, and while I disliked the thought of missing a French and science test scheduled for this week, Esme took priority.

"I'll look after her," I promised, and watched Carlisle disappear into the mist and drizzle outside our door.

And look after her I did. I hadn't spent much time alone with Esme before. Usually I was trying to block out her thoughts when she was with Carlisle, because her pining for him were sometimes embarrassingly graphic. Newborns experienced everything passionately. Esme did her best to restrain her imagination when I was around, but stray thoughts tended to leak through, and she had, after all, been married before her transformation.

Without Carlisle around, her thoughts were more placid. When not agitated, Esme's mind was like a calm lake. She had hidden depths, which she allowed me to see. I think she was so happy not to have to repress her passion for Carlisle since he wasn't there to incite it, that she didn't really mind whatever else I read from her thoughts. She was gentle by nature, finding happiness in the simplest of tasks.

We played card games, chess, and checkers to pass the time. They were mostly teaching games, where I walked her through the rules and advised her more as a teacher than an opponent. Her ex husband hadn't approved of card games for women, she'd never learned chess, and hadn't played checkers since she was a little girl. Her joy in learning was infectious.

We hunted locally twice while Carlisle was gone. Esme was nervous and asked me to scout the area for humans before she's leave the house. There weren't any, of course, but she was hesitant the first time she went out. By the time Carlisle returned she was beginning to allow herself to enjoy the hunt once more. And I'd given up any vestiges of resentment I'd first had when Carlisle brought her home to add her to what I'd thought of as an already complete companionship. Esme was a treasure, not an annoyance as I'd first thought her.

It was a little before dawn when Carlisle raced up to the front door of the farmhouse. I lifted my fingers from the key board, happy to abandon the Brahms melody I'd been playing for Esme as she sat sewing on the ottoman.

Her face lit up as she sensed his presence. We were both standing on the porch when he came to a stop.

"We're safe," he told us. "No one knows which way Goddard was headed."

"Goddard? Was that his name?" Esme asked wonderingly.

"Yes," Carlisle replied. "His name was Hiram Goddard. He left without telling anyone where he was going."

He ascended the steps slowly, one at a time as he continued to speak.

"His fellow trappers warned him not to go off alone. They knew his limp would slow him down, but he didn't listen. More than one of his competitors told me they didn't expect to ever see him again."

He raised a hand to touch her cheek.

"We're safe here, Esme."

Placing her hand on top of his, she smiled quickly and unconvincingly.

"Thank you, Carlisle. That is good to know."

She took a step back, then another, and disappeared through the doorway.

Carlisle gazed after her, crestfallen.

Taking pity on him, I explained.

"She's glad we won't have to move, she's just still a bit upset that she killed him."

My adopted father curled the fingers of the hand that had touched Esme.

"I shouldn't have told her his name."

He sank down on the steps and stared out at the sliver of light beginning to appear over the hills. Dawn was coming. The sun was rising for a new day.

I sat down next to him. It was difficult hearing his thoughts. He was berating himself unreasonably.

"Give her time," I advised softly. "She feels guilty."

"I should have realized."

Again his thoughts descended into self-recrimination. I touched his shoulder reprovingly, reminding him that I could hear those thoughts. He ducked his head, and glanced at me sideways.

"Thank you, Edward, for staying with her."

I knew what he wanted to hear.

"She missed you. She worried about you while you were gone. We both did," I admitted. "I…like her more than I expected."

Carlisle raised his head.

"I know that I didn't give you any say in my decision to change her."

"And I didn't react very well at first."

Both of us remembered my tirades, my reluctance to be in the same room as Esme during her agonizing transformation. I'd behaved badly.

"I'm sorry for that."

"You don't need to apologize, Edward. You're my son now. Nothing will ever change that."

"I know."

I did know it. Carlisle's thoughts were sincere. In the midst of his worry over Esme, there was still a place in his heart for me.

Esme was dusting the furniture in the rooms upstairs. I could hear the swish of the feathers from the duster. She tended to clean when she was upset.

I nudged Carlisle's shoulder with my own.

"You should go to her, take her mind of it."

A thought crossed my mind, and I grinned.

"I suggest a game of checkers. She's quite good at it."

"Checkers?" he echoed, questioningly.

"Checkers," I nodded.

"Then checkers it is."

Esme beat him three games in a row before I had to leave to catch the train for school.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter Seven

Weeks passed. Rain turned to snow, and I had to remember to place a muffler over my mouth whenever I went outside so no one would realize I was the only one who could speak into the chill air without creating a cloud of condensation. Only living beings expelled warm air from their lungs.

Ned thought I was scared of getting sick, and was ridiculously pleased by what he considered a sign of weakness.

"You sure you're bundled up enough there, Edward?"

"I'm fine," I assured him.

"Can't we sit inside today?" asked Gordon.

The girls were in the dining hall, unwilling to risk getting their burgundy skirts wet by sitting on their usual bench. When the group exited the dining hall they saw the thin layer of snow leftover from the morning storm. Dorothy, Harriet, and Clara retreated, but Ned insisted on staying.

"Why would we want to do that? It's not like it's snowing now," Ned said, holding his tray one-handedly as he used the other to wipe away the offending crystallized water from the bench.

"There, good as new," he said, lowering his posterior to the bench.

Steven moved obediently to join him, settling next to him while Gordon decided to set his tray on the iron armrest and eat standing.

"Did you hear about the trial?" he asked, talking around a mouthful of bread roll.

"You mean the bum's?" Steven asked, trying out the word.

Saint Anselm's discouraged the use of slang terms, and Steven thought himself daring for using one.

"Was that guy a bum or a hobo?" Ned asked. "I mean, what's the difference between a bum and a hobo?"

"I think hobos ride trains, and bums are just…poor."

Gordon imagined himself trying to jump into an open boxcar on a moving train and shuddered, consoling himself with another bite of roll.

"Well anyway," he continued, still talking with his mouth full. "Peter's uncle said the jury's been out two days now, and that's not a good sign. Usually they take an hour or so and come back with a guilty verdict."

"Well what's the problem?" Ned asked impatiently. "They caught him, didn't they?"

"They're a city jury," Steven said. "Maybe they don't understand that it couldn't have been anyone else. Murders just don't happen around here."

'_Murders just don't happen around here'_ I echoed in my mind.

I thought of the man Esme killed. They really had no idea.

"I can't believe we have to learn to waltz in Phys. Ed. today."

Ned changed the subject abruptly.

"Well, it's not like they'll let us learn the Charleston," Gordon told them. "I bet they won't even let us do the breakaway."

I saw in his mind a scene from a party. It was summertime and two girls bearing a remarkable similarity to Gordon, were dancing with their friends. From the point of view from above, Gordon must have been watching from the stairs. In the memory, the plumper of the two girls pulled away from her dance partner, a sandy haired man with small brown eyes atop a beak like nose, until they were connected only by their clasped hands. He swung her back into the traditional embrace of dance partners.

So that was the 'breakaway' step. I'd have to let Esme know. I needed to find things to tell her each day, to keep her mind off of what she insisted on calling her crime. I suppose it was, in the sense that a man lost his life. She still brooded over it, despite Carlisle's constant assurances that he didn't blame or condemn her. I tried not to as well. I remembered how difficult it was at first to refrain from taking human life. If Carlisle hadn't been around to stop me, I would've killed hundreds of people by now.

"I could do the Charleston, if I knew how," Ned said.

He got up and placed his tray on the empty space he'd created on the bench. Thrusting his chin out, he challenged Gordon.

"Show me!"

Gordon swallowed a bit of meatloaf so he could answer.

"What, now?"

"Sure, why not?"

'_This should be interesting'_ thought Steven.

His legs were bothering him. The cold weather exacerbated the pain.

"But I'm eating."

"You can do that later." Ned motioned him to set the tray down.

Sighing, Gordon complied, moving it carefully from where he'd balanced it on the bench's armrest to the edge of the planter. He walked over to stand next to Ned.

"You step here…with this foot. Then kick there with the other. Now step back. No, Ned the other foot. Right. Now it's like you kick backward."

Ned shoved his foot back overenthusiastically and nearly slipped in the snow.

"Just touch it down, not like a mule kicking."

Gordon waited, hands on his hips as Ned righted himself.

"I can do it," Ned said defensively. "Let me try it again."

They ran through it several times. I had difficulty restraining myself from laughing when Gordon tried to get Ned to coordinate alternating his hands on his knees while swinging his knees out and in. Catching Steven's eye we shared a silent moment of hilarity watching the other two.

Finally Steven couldn't contain his curiosity.

"Hey Gordon, how did you learn the Charleston?"

Gordon stopped and blushed a bit.

"You know, here and there."

His memory of the plump girl with his same eyes and rounded chin came back. She was in her dressing gown, demonstrating the Charleston in front of him and the other chubby girl. They had to be his sisters.

Steven's eyes grew large.

"You haven't been to a…Speakeasy?" he breathed.

Gordon's hands came up in denial.

"No! Not me. My sisters may have," he ended thoughtfully.

"I'm going to one," Ned said determinedly. "Next time I'm in the city, I'm finding one and dancing the Charleston in it."

He clapped Gordon on the shoulder, causing him to stagger forward.

"Thanks, Gordon."

Ned turned his attention on me, and I could see from his thoughts that he was about to ask me to try out the Charleston as well.

"Isn't that the bell?" I asked innocently.

It wasn't due to ring for another two minutes.

"Huh? I didn't hear anything."

"I'm sure I heard it."

I started backing away from the impromptu dance floor.

Ned shrugged.

"If you say so. Let's go."

I'd never been more thankful for having a study period instead of physical education class. Being around humans all day was taxing enough without being forced to touch them. I couldn't imagine the strain of holding a female in my arms and refraining from leaning down and tearing her throat open.

Sitting at the library table, I read over my history notes. Not that I needed to take notes to remember what I'd read from the textbook, but all the other students took notes so I did as well.

Hartley Saunders walked over to stand in front of me. I lifted my eyes in pretend surprise.

"Cullen, I forgot my history book. Can I borrow yours?"

He pointed to my textbook, which was in plain sight on the table in front of me. Shoving the book towards him with my fingers, I nodded.

"Sure."

"Thanks, I'll get it back to you," he said dully.

I nodded again as he walked back to his own table. He opened the book and began reading. Since I'd already read the same passage myself, I blocked out his thoughts and pulled my French book towards me.

"Mr. Cullen?"

The librarian called me over to her desk. Another student, a young looking first year boy, fidgeted by her side.

Lowering her voice to a whisper, she leaned forward over her desk.

"Miss Wentworth wishes you to go early to your piano lesson today. She needs to leave a quarter of an hour before the end of seventh period. You'll go now, and when she leaves you'll return here to finish out the last quarter hour."

She fixed a severe look on her face, glaring at me over the rims of her eyeglasses before continuing.

"Is that clear? You must return to the library when she leaves."

'_That boy is too handsome for his own good,'_ she thought to herself. _'I'll bet he gets away with murder at home.'_

I did my best to look serious.

"Yes, Ma'am."

She narrowed her eyes, then sat back, wrote a note on a rectangular piece of paper, folded it, and handed it to me.

'_Felicia really ought not to schedule doctor's appointments so early that she has to leave before the end of seventh,'_ she thought disapprovingly.

"Go now, and I'll see you before the end of seventh period."

Glancing over, she saw the first year boy still waiting by her desk.

"And you, go back to class. Now."

He jumped and rushed out of the room.

The librarian watched him go, hissing in annoyance as the sound of his feet pounding the floor faded.

"I'll just go gather my books," I told her before she could turn that annoyance back on me.

I went around the far end of the library table so I had an excuse to walk back by Hartley's table.

As I left I bent down and whispered in his ear, "I'll be back here after seventh, you can return my book then."

He startled, and looked up, making eye contact for a second as I glanced back. He'd heard me, but would he remember? Wrapped up in misery as he was, it was a wonder he absorbed any information at all.

Making my way down the hall to the stair that led to the music rooms, I passed the fencing hall. As I walked by the open doorway, something struck me as odd.

I slowed my steps and stopped. I could smell a human inside the hall. It was Mr. Chin. His scent was unmistakable. He always wore sandalwood cologne. But I couldn't 'hear' his thoughts.

Concentrating, I caught the steady lub-dub of his heart, but it seemed slower than normal. Was he ill? Asleep? Even if he was asleep, I should still be able to read his dreams.

Backing up, I peered through the open doorway.

Mr. Chin was sitting on the floor in the corner by the equipment lockers. His legs were bent in a pretzel shape, and his hands rested, palms up, on his knees. His feet were bare.

I could feel my eyes squint as I concentrated. He had no thoughts. He was alive, breathing, but his mind was so focused on nothingness that there was nothing to read.

Shrugging it off, I determined to ask Carlisle about it later, and went to meet Miss Wentworth and make my requisite three 'mistakes' as I launched through a Mozart piece.

She was distracted and didn't even catch my first planned error.

"That was lovely, Edward," she told me, and glanced at the watch pinned to her blouse. "But I really must fly now or I'll miss my appointment. You will go back to the library, won't you?"

Her eyes strayed to the librarian's note, which she'd set on top of the piano.

"Of course, Miss Wentworth."

"Oh good."

Picking up her woolen overcoat and oversized purse, she propelled herself out the door.

"Don't forget to practice," she trilled from down the hall.

I smiled.

She always said that at the end of each lesson. Humans were so predictable. Most of the time.

Hartley was late getting back to the library. I waited nearly twenty minutes by the door. When he did show up, he shoved the book into my hands and muttered, "Sorry."

I saw from his thoughts that he'd gone to the music room by mistake, found it empty, and wandered around trying to find me, before remembering that I'd told him I'd meet him in the library.

"It's fine."

I didn't have Carlisle's compassion for people, but I couldn't help feeling a bit sorry for Hartley. He was miserable at school. Despite attempts by several female students to attract his attention, all he could think about was his mother's suicide. It consumed his thoughts.

He attempted a grin in thanks, and left. I followed, catching up to him in the hall.

"What did you think of the reading?" I asked.

He glanced over at me in surprise.

"It was OK."

"Long though, twenty pages."

He was puzzled by my interest. I couldn't blame him. I wasn't sure why I was engaging in unnecessary conversation either.

"Yeah, it was long."

We were coming to the part of the building which had been renovated.

"Want to take a shortcut?" I asked.

He glanced around questioningly.

"Where?"

I led the way down the servants' stairs to the laundry corridor.

"It's actually faster this way."

As we walked down it, I caught a hint of sandalwood just as angry voices reached my ears. The thoughts behind them were just as furious.

"What? What?"

Mrs. Tuttle was pretending she couldn't hear properly.

"I am merely asking…"

"You're asking me a question?" The indignation came through loud and clear.

"Could you mend this please?" Mr. Chin's voice was calm, but his thoughts were angry. He knew the laundry mistress was trying to humiliate him.

"Do I look like a seamstress to you? I have enough to do washing your fencing uniforms on top of everything else I have to do around here."

"I thought it was part of your job," Chin countered in a steady voice.

"Well you thought wrong," came the truculent answer. "I'm not like Mrs. Cade, catering to everyone's whims. I do what I'm paid to, nothing more."

"Then I am sorry to have bothered you," Mr. Chin replied.

He walked out of the laundry room, and saw us coming down the hall. Turning quickly, he retreated in the opposite direction.

He wondered if we'd heard the exchange, wondered if Hartley would think less of him for it. He needn't have worried.

As we passed by the laundry room, following in his wake, the sound of Mrs. Tuttle muttering irate imprecations spilled out the door.

Hartley's thoughts were all on Mrs. Tuttle, and his detestation of her. He was comparing Mrs. Tuttle to his mother, and Mrs. Tuttle was on the losing side of the competition. He barely thought of Mr. Chin at all.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter Eight

"Carlisle, something strange happened today."

My adopted father set down the medical journal he was reading and turned in his desk chair to face me.

"What was it?"

"I couldn't read someone's mind."

Carlisle drew in a breath, surprise on his face.

"I thought you could read everyone."

I was explaining it badly. I threaded my hands through my hair in frustration, then dropped them to my sides.

"I could sense his mind, there just wasn't anything in it to read."

"We aren't talking about Ned Shelton, are we?" Carlisle asked, one eyebrow quirked inquisitively.

I laughed, as he meant me to.

"No. It wasn't Ned. It was the fencing teacher, Mr. Chin."

"Chin?" he repeated. "I take it he's a Chinese gentleman."

"Yes, I expect so. He looks Chinese, but he thinks in English."

"That tends to happen the longer one stays in another country speaking another language."

"But what does his nationality matter?"

Carlisle's mind raced through various memories of research he'd done. It was almost too quick for me to follow, but I caught a recurring theme.

"Buddhism?"

He smiled.

"Believe it or not, the Chinese are more interested in the teachings of Sidhartha Guatama, commonly known as Buddha, than are the people native to Buddha's own country. Buddhists believe meditation assists them on their way to greater enlightenment."

He thought through the passages he'd read on Mahayana Buddhism.

"I see," I nodded slowly.

Mr. Chin was probably meditating on nothingness when I walked by the room. It was the only thing that made sense. I thought back to his anger over Mrs. Tuttle's rudeness and thought that if I were in his shoes, I'd have to meditate a lot to keep from throttling her.

"It's the only explanation I can think of," Carlisle offered.

Mentally he ran through and discarded several other possibilities. I raised my hand to stop him.

"I'm sure you're right. I was just curious."

Later that night I accompanied Esme on her hunt. I didn't need the kill, but we'd decided that until she felt ready one or the other of us had to be with her.

I could read her thoughts all too clearly. When she scented her prey, her mind was near-feral. Every fiber of her being was concentrated on finding and taking down the hapless animal in her sights. It was a deer this time. I stood and watched as she finished her meal and let its body fall from her embrace.

She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand.

"I didn't do too badly this time."

She was talking about the bloodstains. Apart from a smear of dirt on her skirt where she'd slammed her knee into the ground while grappling the animal, and a smudge of blood on her collar, she was clean.

"You did beautifully."

Bobbing a curtsy, she smiled.

"Why thank you, kind sir."

"You're welcome, fair lady."

We smiled at each other. It was one of those moments where we allowed ourselves to be silly. Carlisle was so serious all the time. He was a doctor, so he had to be. I'd transformed when I was seventeen. I'd laughed with my friends, shared jokes, and did all the things friends do together. I lost the possibility of those human relationships when I died.

"What is it?"

Esme sensed that everything wasn't right with me, just by the expression on my face.

"Do you ever miss what we've lost?" I asked her. "When I'm not around to hear your thoughts. Are you ever sad about it?"

Esme swallowed, getting rid of the last taste of blood in her mouth, and thought for a moment.

I could see her straining to remember her baby's face, her parents and family, but they were hazy memories, as were mine. She remembered Charles, her husband, with a face full of rage and his fist raised to hit her. Her memory stopped abruptly.

"No," she said determinedly. "No I don't miss it."

"Right. Sorry," I muttered, turning away.

Esme rushed to me, surprising me by throwing her arms around me from behind. She didn't plan the embrace; it was an unexpected impulse. It caught me by surprise so I let it happen.

"Don't be sorry, Edward. Just because I don't miss my old life doesn't mean that you can't miss yours."

As gently as I could, I disentangled myself from her arms and turned to face her.

Her eyes glowed red in the moonlight, contrasting with the snow on the ground and in the branches of the trees behind her. It should have been evil, frightening looking, but Esme had a way of shining affection through her gaze that surpassed the red tinge of her irises.

"If you ever need to talk it through, Edward, I hope you know that you can count on me."

"I will. I do."

She reached out a hand towards me.

"Then come on. Let's go home."

I didn't know quite how she did it, but Esme managed to cheer me up. As we ran back through the trees, I found myself thankful once again that Carlisle chose her.

o-o-o

The next day at school there was a large blue piece of paper on the bulletin board in the main entry hall. Someone had cut out paper snowflakes and pasted them around the edges. Large black letters announced that the school was having a Snowflake Ball Friday after next. I groaned inwardly. Would I be expected to attend?

The female students all thought so. All that day and the next I found them giving me opportunities to ask them to the dance. They'd walk by my desk even if it wasn't directly en route to their own. I was swarmed by them in line when choosing the food I wasn't going to eat in the dining hall.

At one point I saw three of them waiting outside the boys' lavatory for Hartley Saunders.

Even Harriet began imagining dancing in my arms during the lunch period when Dorothy and Clara started whispering strategies to each other.

It was annoying.

Finally, Yvonne Brisco summoned the necessary courage in French class to come right out and ask me. The class bell hadn't rung yet when she gulped, and turned towards me in her chair to lean over and whisper.

"Edward, are you going to the snowflake ball?"

"No," I said forcefully.

I'd startled her.

"I have plans with my family that day," I invented. "We made them weeks ago."

The only plan I had was to go hunting, but Yvonne didn't need to know that. To give her credit, instead of being upset that she couldn't ask me to go with her, she felt sorry for me instead.

"How awful for you," she said, then stopped as a horrified expression stole over her face.

"N…not that it's awful to be with your family or anything like that. I mean I'm sure they're all very nice…I mean…"

"I know what you mean, and I'm not offended at all," I reassured her.

"Oh, well that's good."

Flustered, she opened her French book to the wrong page number and tried to look busy.

I was relieved. Yvonne would tell Marjorie, who'd tell her friends, who'd tell the entire school and I wouldn't have to dodge around hopeful females anymore. I should have thought of the stratagem earlier.

Hartley Saunders wasn't as lucky. A group of girls nearly trampled frightened little Julius as he exited French class because they were chasing after their dark haired Adonis. Hartley took the short cut I'd shown him and lost them.

Gordon set his tray down at the table with a thump and beamed at the rest of us. It was snowing so heavily outside that even Ned decided to eat in. Gordon was the last to join us at the far end of the table that jutted out nearest the kitchen doors, which opened and closed often to allow the kitchen staff in and out. It was a noisy area and thus unpopular with the rest of the students.

"I have news," he announced.

"Is that why you're so late?" Steven asked.

"What is it? What?"

Ned always wanted to know new things, just so long as it didn't involve opening a book to acquire the knowledge.

"The jury is deadlocked."

He didn't have to say which jury. There was only one trial that mattered in the town surrounding Saint Anselm's Academy.

"Someone killed the jury?" asked Clara, shocked.

Harriet let out her breath in a huff.

"Deadlocked means they can't reach a decision," she told her.

"I knew that," Dorothy lied.

"So did I!" Ned cheerfully lied along with her.

I pushed another piece of foul smelling macaroni around my plate, separating it from its fellows to make it look as if I'd eaten some of it.

"So what happens now?"

Gordon picked up a fork and shoveled a load of the noodles in, chewing and swallowing quickly before answering.

"Peter's uncle reckons the District Attorney will ask the judge for another trial. He hates bums, and he keeps saying "justice will be served" all the time whenever reporters are around."

"I thought they had to let criminals go when a jury doesn't find them guilty," Dorothy said, twirling one of her brown curls in her fingers.

She'd finished her food and was looking longingly at the apple brown betty on Clara's tray.

"Nope," Gordon informed her. "That's just when they find them not guilty."

"So are they going to let him go until they can have another trial?" asked Ned.

His oft-repeated daydream of capturing a masked jailbird flew into his mind.

"I don't know," Gordon frowned. "I don't think so."

"I hope not," Dorothy shuddered. "What if he came back here?"

"He never was here at school," Harriet reminded her.

"That's right," Clara piped in. "I never saw him, and I would've remembered because he looked so scary in his picture in the newspaper."

I could have told them they had nothing to fear from Jedidiah. The thoughts I'd read from him on the train were defeated, not violent. I pushed more noodles around on my plate and let the conversation wash over me.

The next week all the girls could think about was what they were going to wear to the dance. Packages began arriving at school as letters home begging for party dressed bore fruit. The laundry mistress, Mrs. Tuttle was in a constant state of rage as this or that student asked her to mend things or get stains out of hems or stockings. I learned to stay away from the servants' corridor when I 'heard' her thoughts coming from the laundry room.

Friday was sheer torture. If I had to see the image of another party dress in the girls' minds I was going to scream. Yvonne smiled sadly at me in French class, and pulled at her hair, wondering is she should cut it back into a bob. No one had asked her to the dance. All students were invited, but it was a mark of distinction to walk in on someone's arm, and remain their dance partner through the evening.

Ned, in his usual ham handed way, had paired up Steven with Harriet, Gordon with Clara, and Dorothy with himself. By acting as if it was a fait accompli, none of them had to ask anyone else. It was an unintended stroke of genius, and a relief to me since the girls stopped daydreaming about dancing with me once they found out who they were going with, and accepted the fact that I wouldn't be there.

"We'll miss you at the dance," Clara told me shyly when the lunch period was over.

"Yeah, you're going to miss out on all the dancing!"

Ned fondly imagined that he'd be able to Charleston to waltz music and the chaperones wouldn't notice.

"I'm sure you'll all have a fine time without me," I told them.

They protested, but I could see from their thoughts that their minds were on the upcoming festivities. It made it that much easier to leave school for the weekend with a clear conscience.

Monday morning the train made it to the station on time. It was quiet in town, the chill air keeping people indoors. Snow wasn't falling, but it lay on the ground, evidence of the storm which had passed through the area Sunday night. I trudged through it, not caring that my pant legs were getting wet. They'd dry soon enough at school, and it wasn't as if I could catch a cold anymore.

As I came closer to the gates of Saint Anselm's, I overtook another figure trudging through the snow. It was Hartley Saunders, walking to school from his house in town. He was in rare form, imagining in detail his mother's dead face, and the way the rope had creaked as her body swayed slightly from the rafters.

"Hartley!" I called, louder than necessary to snap him out of it.

"What?"

He looked around, hair mashed down under a knitted cap so that it fell into his eyes.

"Oh, Edward. It's you."

"Wait up, I'll walk with you," I offered.

He gave me a quick glance as I fell into step at his side. Humans walked so slowly in the snow.

"You haven't heard yet, have you?" he asked.

"No," I said slowly as I read from his mind what he was about to say.

"There's been another murder."

My heart sank. Another murder meant more scrutiny, and more questions, the very thing a vampire like me wanted to avoid. So much for a quiet academic life.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter Nine

"It's Mrs. Tuttle," Hartley said as he trudged through the snow. "She's dead."

"What?" I feigned surprise, even though I'd already seen the scant information in Hartley's head.

"She didn't come home from work Friday night, and when her husband went looking for her he found her dead in an alley."

Hartley paused, his mind flashing back to his mother's bloated face. He swallowed and continued in a voice that wasn't quite steady.

"She'd been strangled to death."

"I'm sorry," I said.

It wasn't so much that I was sorry Mrs. Tuttle was gone, for she'd been a horrible person, but I was truly sorry that the murder was stirring up Hartley's more nightmarish memories.

"Yeah," he agreed softly.

He was thinking about how much he'd despised the laundress.

We reached the throng of students making their way from the dorms to the front entrance. All their thoughts and words were on the murder, and the victim. They swarmed like bees, all buzzing with fear mixed with delight in another scandal. As I passed through the mass of students, bits of facts and rumors filtered through.

Mrs. Tuttle was strangled with her own stockings.

Mrs. Tuttle was strangled with a sheet from the laundry, no, it was a pillowcase still dripping wet from the wash. Another student thought it was a belt.

She'd been found with her skirt hitched up.

She'd been found completely naked and her skin had frozen to the ground so the police had to build a fire to get her unglued.

That last bit was from a first year student who'd once licked a frozen drainpipe on a bet and had his tongue stick to it, so I discounted it.

As usual it was Peter who had the most up to date crime news. Gordon regaled us with it at lunch.

"So I was talking to Peter after first period, and he said Mrs. Tuttle left school late Friday night after helping clean up after the dance."

Steven's jaw dropped.

"Tuttle helped out after work?"

Gordon nodded.

"Yeah, I know. Doesn't sound like her at all, does it? But she did."

"Maybe she was being nice?" offered Clara hesitantly.

Dorothy and Harriet stared at her disbelievingly.

"Hah!" Ned snorted. "Mrs. Tuttle probably demanded extra pay and that's why she stayed."

Considering what I knew of the woman, Ned was probably right.

"Well anyways," Gordon broke in, aggrieved that he'd been interrupted. "Her husband didn't notice she hadn't come home until the next morning when he didn't smell coffee when he woke up. So he started walking to the school, and when he passed by an alley he saw her feet sticking out so he went in and found her."

"How awful," Clara shuddered.

Her imagination fixated on the image of feet encased in shoes, just visible from the edge of a building, the rest of the body in shadow. For some reason she imagined Mrs. Tuttle had worn party slippers, then I realized she was imagining the shoes she herself had worn to the dance Friday night.

"Yeah, she was strangled with a pillowcase."

"But was she naked?" Ned asked eagerly.

The image in his mind was more disturbing than Clara's.

"Ew."

"Ned!"

"That's disgusting."

"Grow up, will you?"

"Blech!"

Everyone chimed in with approbation, yet all of their minds pictured, fleetingly, what they imagined the laundry mistress had looked like unclothed. It was not a pleasant thing to contemplate so I was happy when they consciously wrenched their thoughts off of the victim.

"No," Gordon's fist came down on the table, making the plates and cutlery jump on the trays. "That's a total lie. Peter said she was wearing her coat over her clothes."

"Did she have her apron on?" asked Dorothy, playing nervously with a piece of her hair.

Gordon looked blank.

"Why would she be wearing her apron if she was walking home?"

Dorothy reddened.

"I just always see her in her apron."

"Me too!" Clara chimed in and put her arm over Dorothy's shoulder.

Ned hooted with laughter.

"You think Mr. Perry wears that funny chef hat when he goes home? You think the kitchen maids wear their aprons home?"

"Knock it off, Ned," Steven admonished.

Ned continued to laugh, but quietly, under his breath.

"Anyway, you haven't heard the best part," Gordon leaned forward and lowered his voice. "Peter's uncle said that Jedidiah got out on bail Friday morning! His lawyer raised the money, and now Jedidiah has disappeared."

Clara gave a little shriek and covered her mouth.

"If that's true, wouldn't we have heard about it already?" asked Harriet, eyes narrowed.

She thought Gordon tended to over dramatize things. She was correct, but in this case I saw from his thoughts that he was relating the information as he'd received it from Peter. The question was, had Peter got it right?

I saw him in the hall outside the library after an excruciating hour of trying to block out Hartley's increasingly maudlin thoughts, and walked a little slower as I came up to the knot of students listening avidly to his conversation.

According to his uncle, Jedidiah was indeed out on bail, but his lawyer was claiming Jedidiah had dinner with him the night of the murder, and only disappeared on Saturday when news of it reached the city. Peter's uncle didn't believe the lawyer's story, so consequently neither did Peter or his friends.

As I continued on to the music rooms, I reflected that it made sense for Jedidiah to leave town. He'd been falsely accused once before, why wait around to be accused again?

Liszt's Hungarian music was just as delightful as ever, but I played without really thinking about it, my mind on the laundry mistress.

"That was absolutely wonderful," Miss Wentworth beamed, patting me on the shoulder.

Smiling my thanks at her compliment, I cursed myself inside. I'd been distracted and forgot to throw in my usual errors.

"I've never heard Liszt played so feelingly."

What a joke. I wasn't even paying attention.

"I really think you have a bright future ahead of you in music," she went on, rising from the piano bench to go rummaging at her desk through the sheets of music piled on it.

"Thank you, Miss Wentworth."

She was a tiny, bird-like woman with bright brown eyes and a head of black curls threaded through with grey, which she kept pulled back in an old fashioned bun on top of her head, rather than at the nape of her neck.

"Ah, here it is!"

Holding up the papers she'd wanted, she walked back to the piano bench.

"It's Hungarian Rhapsody number two. I think you're ready for it."

I saw in her mind that she'd planned to wait until next year before giving me more challenging work. So much for pretending to learn at a human pace.

"If you think I'm ready for it…"

I put as much uncertainty in my voice as I could as I took the papers from her. Our fingers brushed, and she drew in her breath in surprise.

'_His hands are so cold! Is it poor circulation? That's deadly in a pianist,'_ she thought.

I had to get her mind off my body temperature.

"I promise I'll practice hard on this piece. Thank you for trusting me with it. Liszt is one of my favorites," I lied. "Rimsky-korsakov too."

Miss Wentworth loved his Sheherazade. Suitably distracted, she began speaking about the composer and suggested some of his pieces as well. It looked like I'd be playing grandiose Russian music for some time.

With Miss Wentworth suitably sidetracked for the remainder of class, I was free to leave at the ending bell.

As I started back toward the main staircase, I saw Hartley at the far end of the hall. I'd had enough of his thoughts in the study period in the library, so I ducked down the back steps to the servants' corridor to avoid him.

It was quiet there, no students hanging about to talk to Mrs. Tuttle about stains that needed washing out. There was someone in the laundry room though. Mrs. Cade sat on a stool, hands clasped in her lap, staring at a pile of linens. She noticed me as I walked by, and came to the doorway.

"Do you need anything washed?" she asked.

Her eyes and nose were red from crying.

"No. I'm a day student."

She looked so crestfallen that I felt compelled to continue the conversation.

"I'm sorry."

Mrs. Cade took a handkerchief from the pocket of her voluminous white apron, and blew her nose while shaking her head.

"No, I'm sorry. I should have known. It's just so quiet here today."

Images of herself working alongside Mrs. Tuttle filled her mind. Incredibly, Mrs. Tuttle was laughing in some of them. I'd never seen the woman without a scowl on her face.

"I expect it's…lonely today," I said hesitantly.

Gratefulness filled the woman's eyes.

"Yes, yes it is. I don't know how I'll manage now that Mrs. Tuttle is gone."

"I'm sure they'll send someone to help."

"It won't be the same," she sighed.

"But it might not be as lonesome," I countered.

Her mind filled up again with images of Mrs. Tuttle, bits of conversations they'd had about the war years. Their husbands had both served in the Great War. Mrs. Cade's hadn't come home. Mrs. Tuttle's had, but he was changed. His hands shook. He had difficulty holding down a job. Some days he couldn't get out of bed. My words made her wonder what would become of him.

"Yes, you're probably right. Well," she said brightly. "I don't want to burden you with my problems."

"It's no burden."

I smiled a goodbye and left, my perception of Mrs. Tuttle changed forever.

Mrs. Cade thought her an angel of mercy to stay with her damaged husband and work at a job she hated in order to support him. I'd thought her the very devil of a woman. Mind reading didn't always show me the whole picture of a person. I could only see what they were thinking of while they were thinking about it. If I only 'read' a person when they were in a bad mood, it colored my perceptions.

If Jedidiah hadn't happened to think about the fact that he was not guilty of killing Mrs. Douglas that day on the train, I'd probably think him a killer just like everyone else.

"Where do you think he went?" I asked Carlisle when I got home.

"He may have followed the train tracks out of town, or hitched a ride from a farmer," Carlisle answered thoughtfully. "I doubt he'd try to cross the mountains so he's probably far from here."

"Poor man," sighed Esme.

She was thinking how unfair it was that an innocent man had to flee, when a guilty person like herself could stay at home in comfort and safety.

"Are you certain he's innocent?" Carlisle asked.

I shrugged.

"He thinks he is, and why would he fool himself?"

"The human mind is a very complex thing. We're only just beginning to study it properly."

He thought of names like Freud and Jung before continuing.

"It's possible that killing the woman was such a traumatic experience that he blocked it from his mind."

Shaking my head, I disagreed.

"He was certain. He was trying to get drunk on strawberry wine when she was killed. It just gave him a headache. His memory was very clear on that point. He didn't do it."

"Where will he go?" Esme asked.

"I'm not sure, but I hope he gets away."

"More importantly, if he didn't kill Mrs. Douglas or the laundry lady at your school, then who did?"

I didn't have an answer to Carlisle's question. Since both murders occurred in the residential areas of the town, areas I never ventured into, the likelihood of my crossing the path of the true murderer was slim. Not that there was much I could do if I did find the man who'd killed them. I couldn't go to the police, and I'd promised Carlisle never to kill a human so I couldn't mete out justice on my own.

It looked like the murderer or murderers were going to get away with it.


	10. Chapter 10

**A/N: Brace yourselves for a Christmas chapter. It's not exactly the right season for posting a chapter set in the cold and snow, but here goes. Please review and let me know what you think of the Christmas gifts.**

Chapter Ten

"Happy Christmas, Esme," said Carlisle, smiling at her as they stood by the large pine tree taking up a whole corner of the parlor.

"Merry Christmas," she corrected him gently as she placed the last ornament on the tree.

"It looks nice, Esme," I told her.

Looking at the happiness in her eyes, and the indulgent, contented look on Carlisle's face, I couldn't begrudge her request to have a real Christmas, even thought it meant traveling back and forth to the city to purchase things she deemed necessary.

So much for winter holidays. Had I still been human I would've been exhausted by now. The farmhouse was filled to the brim with garlands, wreathes, and hand sewn decorations. It took us two days of trekking around the forest to find the 'perfect' tree. Now the tree stood, dripping with ornaments, in the corner of the parlor.

"Yes, it does. I couldn't have done it without you either. Thank you, both of you, for helping."

"It was my pleasure," Calisle smiled at her.

She smiled back, and their thoughts became embarrassingly sentimental.

"Let's open presents."

As I'd hoped, my suggestion distracted Esme, though Carlisle was still mentally comparing the way the firelight glistened off her hair to the way it glistened on the tinsel hanging from the tree.

"Oh yes, let's!"

Quick as a flash, Esme darted to her knees and reached under the tree to pull out a box with a large red bow on it.

"Here Edward, this one is for you. I hope you like it," she said shyly, handing it over.

I sat on the ottoman. I knew what it was, of course. While Esme was careful to knit it while I was away at school, she couldn't keep from thinking about it and her gift to Carlisle. I pretended to be surprised anyhow when I removed the top of the box and pulled out the chocolate brown wool sweater and matching cap.

"It's wonderful, Esme. Thank you. I'll wear it often."

"I'm so glad you like it," she smiled. "I thought the color would look good on you. I don't think I would have attempted something like this back when I was human. I was always dropping stitches when I tried to knit before."

Holding the sweater up to my chest, I smoothed it across my torso. She'd knitted a sort of entwined cable pattern into the center of it.

"It looks complicated," I said. "Thank you for taking so much trouble over me."

She rose and came over to kiss me gently on the cheek.

"It's no trouble at all. I like doing things for you, and Carlisle."

The sincerity in her words and thoughts left me feeling awkward. I placed the knitted cap on my head.

"I like the hat, too."

She tugged it straight, and frowned a bit.

"It seems a shame to cover your beautiful hair, though."

I caught Carlisle's silent guffaw at the word 'beautiful' and made a face at him.

"What is it?" Esme asked, looking from me to Carlisle and back again.

"I'd prefer the term handsome," I told her gently.

Her hand flew to cover her mouth.

"I'm so sorry, I wasn't thinking."

Carlisle came up from behind her and put his arm around her shoulders, begging me silently to fix the situation.

"It's fine, Esme. I love the sweater and the cap. And I'd just as soon cover my hair. One of the kitchen maids compared me to a copper pot the last day of the term."

"A copper pot?" echoed Esme.

I sighed.

"It was the last lunch of the term, and she thought quite clearly that my hair reminded her of the copper pot she'd just finished polishing the night before."

Esme giggled. I let it pass, but glared at Carlisle.

"Don't laugh," I warned. "If you'd been there she probably would've compared your hair to a honey pot."

That merely served to make Esme laugh harder, as I'd intended.

'_Thank you, Edward,'_ Carlisle thought at me.

"Where's my gift?" he asked out loud.

"Oh, here it is," Esme answered, moving with vampiric speed to retrieve it and place it in his hands.

It was a scarf and glove set made of cashmere. She'd asked me to pick up the fine yarn in the city, just as she'd asked Carlisle to go and buy the brown wool for my gift on a different day.

"It's beautiful," Carlisle told her.

'_And so are you,'_ he thought silently as he gazed at her.

"My turn," I jumped in before his thoughts could venture further.

"Carlisle, this one is for you," I said, thrusting it at him.

It was a leather Gladstone style doctor's bag, with the initials CC engraved on a pewter oblong set onto the leather by the handles.

"Your old bag is falling apart," I informed him. "When you start practicing medicine again, you'll need a new one."

A slew of memories went through Carlisle's mind, of patients, other doctors, and hospital rooms. He missed being a doctor.

"Thank you, Edward. Your gift is most thoughtful."

I shrugged.

Esme was beginning to feel guilty, blaming herself for taking Carlisle away from a profession he loved. She didn't show any of this on her face, but I knew Carlisle would sense it if I allowed her thoughts to continue on in that vein. He was finely attuned to her moods.

I reached into my pocket and drew out a small box and handed it to Esme.

Her eyes widened. Because she kept the farmhouse scrupulously clean, she knew where Carlisle had hidden his gifts, and where I'd kept his doctor's bag under my bed. She didn't, however, know about this box, for I'd kept it with me after I took her gift out of the locked strongbox I kept near my desk up in my bedroom. Carlisle gave it to me so that I'd have a safe place to store the deed to my family home back in Chicago.

"This belonged to my mother," I told her. "You've taken such good care of me and Carlisle, I think she'd have wanted you to have it."

"Edward, I can't take anything that was your mother's. You should keep family heirlooms, and I'm…"

"Family," I interrupted her. "As far as I'm concerned, you are my family now."

I was hoping to make up for my bad attitude when Carlisle first brought Esme home. I didn't think she'd heard our arguments through the agony of her transformation, but I remembered every hurtful, accusatory word I'd said, and I was ashamed of them.

Esme looked up from the box in her hand and fixed her eyes on mine.

'_I love you, Edward,'_ she thought at me intently. _'If my son had lived, I wish he'd grown into the sort of young man you are. This gift means more to me than you'll ever know.'_

"Then I accept," she said out loud. "Now let's see what it is that I've been making such a fuss about."

She sat down on the ottoman I'd vacated, and pulled the bow off the box, opening it carefully.

Inside was a small gold cross with a tiny diamond at the center. She lifted it out by its thin chain and held it up.

"Oh Edward, it's beautiful. I'll treasure it always."

Carlisle met my gaze over Esme's head. He remembered taking me back to my family's home in Chicago, going through the house in search of keepsakes to take away with me when we moved. I'd kept my mother's rings, an old cameo that had belonged to her grandmother, a string of pearls with matching earrings, and the cross on a chain. He knew it was important to me because it had been important to her.

'I'm proud of you, son,' he thought at me.

I ducked my head in acknowledgement. It wasn't, after all, as if I would ever wear the cross. It was far too feminine in design.

"Will you put it on me?" she asked.

"Of course."

Careful not to break the delicate mechanism, I unlatched it to get the chain around Esme's neck, then refastened it as she pulled her hair aside.

She caught my hand as I pulled away and twisted to look up at me.

"Thank you," she said feelingly.

I nodded.

"You're up next, Carlisle," I told him. Esme's gratitude was making me uncomfortable.

He knew what I was up to, but was willing to distract Esme for me.

"Then I suppose I'd better find your present," he answered.

It was under the tree, and he hauled it out, passing it over to me. I knew it was music, he'd let that much slip in his thoughts, but not precisely what kind.

The papers in the box smelled old. I tore off the wrappings and opened the lid to find a sheaf of yellowing sheet music. Scanning quickly, my eye immediately caught the scrawled ink across the top.

"That's not…"

"It is," answered Carlisle with a broad grin.

"How did you?"

"I still have some friends in Europe," he reminded me.

Curious, Esme moved closer to gaze at the papers which were of such interest to me and Carlisle.

"What is it?"

I shifted the box so the writing at the top was upright.

"It's in German," I told her. I recognized the distinctive signature right away.

"It's a note from Beethoven to a friend. It basically says this is one of the first copies off the presses, and he hopes he enjoys it," Carlisle translated.

"Beethoven? The Beethoven?"

"Yes."

"I don't know how you got your hands on this, but thank you, Carlisle."

"I thought you'd like it."

He turned his attention to Esme.

"And now for you."

He pulled out a square box from under the tree and handed it to her.

She debated telling him that he shouldn't have, but realized it would sound churlish so she contented herself with a smile and took it from him.

As she opened it, she gasped. Folded into a neat square inside the box was a silk scarf in gold, brown, and the exact same caramel shade of her hair. Nestled in the middle of the scarf was a pin. I'd helped Carlisle pick it out, so I already knew that it was a butterfly brooch in the art nouveau style with elongated antennae and wings interspersed with bits of amber.

"A butterfly, oh it's perfect, Carlisle."

She drew it out of the box and offered it on her palm for me to see.

I pretended I hadn't seen it before and gazed admiringly upon it.

"Do you really like it?" he asked.

The way the man had dithered over choosing a gift, worrying over how Esme would react, you'd think he'd been a diplomat tasked with finding the perfect item to present to Queen Victoria when she became old and fussy.

Actually, if Carlisle had wrapped up a clod of dirt and presented it to Esme she would have loved it, because it came from him.

"Of course I do. I like both the scarf and the butterfly."

She closed the pin carefully in her hand, and threw her arms around Carlisle's neck in an embrace.

"Thank you, for everything."

Carlisle didn't have to be a mind reader like me to realize Esme was thanking him for her new life as well as the gift. The symbolism of the butterfly wasn't lost on her.

His arms came around her back and he returned the hug gingerly, as if he were afraid it wasn't real.

Eventually, Esme pulled away as I pretended to be engrossed in my new sheet music.

She was embarrassed by her display. I could have told her that the embrace was worth more to Carlisle than all the scarves and gloves in America, but that was for him to say, not me.

"Edward, will you play for us?" she asked, nodding at the music in my hands.

"Gladly," I answered and spent the rest of the evening playing for them.

School resumed, and life went on. Everyone seemed intent on catching up with each other and sharing stories of their holidays as if they'd been gone a month rather than the two week interval allowed by the school calendar. Even students from other countries seemed to have found friends to spend Christmas with.

"I got a new bat, and a mitt, and …"

Ned's list of Christmas gifts was cut short as the girls appeared with their lunch trays and sat down at the table inside. It was too cold for the humans to eat outside, so they were congregating in the dining hall.

"Hello, Edward."

Clara smiled shyly as she sat between Dorothy and I. Harriet settled on the other side of the table with Gordon and Steven.

"Clara."

Gordon reached for the saltshaker and nearly overturned the glass of water on my tray. I barely managed to slow my hand to human speed as I grabbed it.

"Whoa Edward, you're fast."

Ned stared admiringly at my hand, clasping the glass and imagined me running around the bases as he, Ned, hit a home run. He started scheming to get me on the baseball team.

"What else did you get for Christmas?" I asked.

Luckily for me, Ned was easily distracted.

"Besides the batt and the mitt? She's a beauty by the way. Nice leather, and as soon as I get it seasoned it's gonna be great. I also got new pajamas, and my aunt Bessie knitted me some socks, and…"

I tuned him out and listened to the thoughts of the others. Steven was thinking of his own pile of gifts, happily realizing he'd received more than Ned. Gordon was jealous. He hadn't received the shotgun he'd had his heart set on. His mother and sisters had overruled his father and he ended up with clothing and books. The only thing he'd gotten that he'd really wanted was a gramophone record, but he could only play it at home since he didn't have a gramophone player at school.

Dorothy was thinking wistfully of her increased stash of romance novels under her bed, while Clara was wondering if she'd be able to wear her Christmas dress with the roses at the hip and bosom for the next snowflake ball, or if it would be out of fashion by next year. Harriet was simply disgusted by the avarice in Ned's tone.

"Hey, everyone, did you hear what happened?"

Peter of policeman uncle fame ran up to the table. He tripped about a foot away and had to throw up his hands and steady himself on the table's edge.

Giggles came from a nearby table as the twins, Sara and Mary, saw Peter's near-fall.

Peter straightened up and ignored them, addressing his words to Gordon.

"Jedidiah's been shot. We're safe again."

Shock registered on everyone's faces and thoughts.

"What happened?"

Ned wanted details, the gorier the better. He also wanted Peter's attention on him and off of Gordon.

Peter glanced at him impatiently, but stubbornly continued to address Gordon.

"The day after Christmas they found him trying to jump on a boxcar. The local sheriff recognized him and got him right before he got on."

"Are they sure it was him?"

Steven was skeptical, thinking how easy it would be to mistake one bum for another.

Peter waved a hand impatiently.

"His lawyer identified the body. It was him alright."

"Did the train roll over him?"

A crease appeared between Peter's eyes as he contemplated the sheer imbecility of Ned's question. If the man had been crushed he would hardly have been identifiable.

"Uh, no."

Sean passed behind Peter, carrying his tray of food. He'd heard about Jedidiah's fate earlier, and guessed that Peter was spreading the word. His thoughts were sad, hoping for mercy for the man's soul. It was a curious reaction to the fate of an accused murderer.

He saw Sara and Mary motioning to him to join them and gave a decidedly unpriestly curse in his mind. He'd hoped to eat with Julius, but couldn't pretend he hadn't seen the twins' invitation and resigned himself to their more exuberant company.

"Ew, Ned," Clara groaned

"That's really unseemly," said Dorothy primly.

Unseemly was her new favorite word. She'd read it in one of her romance novels and was determined to use it at every opportunity.

"If the train rolled over him, they wouldn't have been able to identify him," Steven explained patiently.

"Oh yeah, right," Ned muttered.

He appeared chastened to the others, but I knew he was merely thinking of ways he could manage to jump into a moving boxcar without killing himself. I had to concentrate on keeping my expression neutral when he came up with the idea of tying a rope to a tree branch and swinging inside the open boxcar door like Tarzan from the Edgar Rice Burroughs stories.

"Thank you, Peter," said Harriet, craning her neck to look up at him. "It's good to know that we don't have to be wary anymore."

Peter stepped back, surprised that she was speaking to him. He'd thought Harriet was too clever to bother with someone like him.

"Oh, you wouldn't have to worry anyhow. My uncle is a policeman. He'll protect the town."

His pride in his family was clear in his voice and expression.

Harriet gave a small smile, while thinking acidly what a pity it was his uncle hadn't managed to protect two women from getting killed.

All I could think of was how easy it would be for another murder to occur now that everyone had a false sense of security. My unease didn't leave me in the weeks that followed.

Winter passed. Snow turned to slush and then rain. Ned and his group of misfits began eating outside again as green buds appeared on the barren branches of the trees. I was able to rid myself of lunch by throwing it to the increasing population of rabbits and gophers.

With new life, came death in a most unexpected way.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

In the middle of spring semester, Saint Anselm's Academy hosted their annual Parents' Day. Classes were dismissed and the campus was open to the families of the students for tours, a special address by the headmaster and headmistress, a tea out on the athletic field by the library, and a formal dinner to round out the festivities.

"You don't have to go if you don't want to, you know," I told Carlisle the evening before what I considered a colossal waste of time.

I knew he worried about being away from Esme for very long. His eyes strayed to her as we spoke in the parlor. She noticed and responded immediately.

"No, please you must go," she told him, shifting in her chair.

Esme was practicing her human mannerisms, forcing her self to shift her weight, to sigh and breathe in a natural fashion.

She turned her head to address me, which gave Carlisle an opportunity to admire the way her hair looked in the light from the fire in the hearth. Sometimes he purposely built the unnecessary fires just for that reason.

"Edward, tell him he must go. You know I'd go along with him if I could."

Her expression was pleading. It was tearing Carlisle apart.

"Of course I know that," I reassured her. "It's just that with neither of us here, things could…go wrong."

Her mind shot right back to the scene on the mountain where she'd killed the trapper, regaling both of us with a visual memory of her feasting on the man's blood. Venom pooled in my mouth and I swallowed it back impatiently.

"Not that it will go wrong," I hastened to add.

Carlisle stepped closer, concerned about the look of guilt flashing across Esme's face.

"I trust you completely, Esme, but…"

"But I'm a newborn still," she interrupted softly. "I'm a danger to us all."

"No more than Edward was in his first few years, and look at him now."

His eyes were on Esme, but his thoughts were on me. The pride and love in them was embarrassing.

"Let's not, please," I protested, trying to interject some humor into our conversation.

Carlisle ignored my rather lame attempt to divert the topic, while Esme gave me a sad smile.

Then she let out a breath in a sharp sigh and raised her eyes to Carlisle's face.

"I won't have you miss Parents' Day because of me. I'll spend the day down in the storm cellar if I have to. Having earth around me should muffle the smell of any humans who might pass by. You can roll a boulder over the doors to keep me in. I want you to go and support Edward, really I do."

Esme's unusual stubbornness was beginning to sway Carlisle.

"I really don't mind missing Parents' Day," I said.

"Nonsense," Esme contradicted briskly. "I won't hear of either of you missing Parents' Day. It's an important part of school."

Carlisle and I exchanged a look. Clearly Esme had her mind made up.

"As you wish," he conceded. "But I'll only go for a few hours, for the address and the tea. I don't think Edward will mind missing the dinner?"

I shuddered theatrically.

"Definitely not. Even if I were still human, the thought of school food wouldn't be appealing. I pity the parents."

That earned me a genuine smile from Esme.

"Very well. We'll have our own dinner when you come home."

"Are you sure you don't want to hunt tonight?" Carlisle asked.

She shook her head.

"No, I'll wait until tomorrow when we can all go together and you can tell me all about Parents' Day. This evening I'd much rather stay in and hear Edward play. Didn't Miss Wentworth send home some more Rimsky Korsakov?"

I groaned in mock horror.

"Overwrought Russian music it is," I said, and moved to the piano.

o-o-o

"And these are the stables," said Mary and Sara in unison as they squired their bemused parents and little brother past us on the lawn.

Carlisle and I were standing as far away from the tea tents as possible, watching the human families with amusement.

The headmaster and headmistress's address had been suitably boring and tedious. Mr. and Mrs. Clarence used phrases like "in loco parentis" and other Latin and Greek terms that sailed right above many of the attending families' heads. It was difficult not to laugh at the analogy of the school as one big happy family. Of course not everyone was a mind reader who knew of the rivalry between the teachers, the quarrels amongst the students, and the petty jealousies and angers that seethed on a daily basis.

Ned went running past, so focused on meeting up with his big sister at the library that he didn't even see me or Carlisle.

I saw Sean standing with his mother, a widow in black with a tired look on her face and a plate of sandwiches in her hand. He was trying to convince her to eat them, but all she wanted to do was sit down and weep because her husband wasn't with her.

Someone was crying softly. It was Harriet. She was hiding in the loft above the stables, letting the hay muffle the sound. Her parents didn't show up. They just sent a telegram with their regrets, but no real explanation.

Carlisle heard it too.

"Is the child in pain?" he asked me, his eyes on the tiny window at the apex of the stables' roof.

I shook my head.

"Not unless you count a broken heart," I told him. "Her parents didn't come today."

"Ah."

His eyes darkened with sympathy.

"Should we…?" he began to suggest going to her.

"No, Louisa will take care of it."

I nodded to the dark haired dynamo, striding through the crowd to look for Harriet. I saw in her thoughts that she knew where the girl was likely hiding and I decided to leave her to the rescue mission. She was also determined to hunt down Julius from French class as his father hadn't shown up either. Louisa took it upon herself to find and corral those abandoned by their families to keep them from brooding.

"Carlisle," I said with utter sincerity. "Have I thanked you yet for coming today?"

He took a closer look at Louisa, marching into the stables and beginning to call Harriet's name, and grimaced.

"That's quite alright, son. The pleasure is all mine."

We shared a look of perfect understanding and laughed.

"Well, I suppose I should give you the grand tour."

I nodded towards the knots of parents and children beginning to drift away from the tea tent, depleted now of most of its sandwiches, aspics, fruits, and crackers and cheeses. They didn't smell any more appetizing on the humans' breath than they did on the serving trays.

Leading the way past the tennis courts, I saw Julius ducking around the corner of the girls' dormitory to lurk in one of the recessed doorways looking out on the side garden. He was hiding from Louisa. I didn't blame him. Her father, a general in the army, stood linked arm in arm with a delicate looking blonde woman. Louisa got her facial features from her mother, but her coal black hair was all from her father.

"When is Louisa coming back?" the woman asked her husband timidly.

The general narrowed his eyes and stared at the corner of the girls' dormitory where Carlisle and I had emerged.

"When she's located her targets, she'll meet us here."

In his mind was a floor plan of the school. He guessed, correctly, that the most logical place for Louisa to come back was the corner of the girls' dormitory. He caught sight of us, sized us up, and dismissed us as just another father and son, not a threat. If he only knew.

"Friends, dear. Didn't she say she was bringing her friends to come and meet us?" his wife corrected gently.

"Humph," the general replied.

"I do hope she finds them soon," the lady fretted. "I don't like the thought of anyone being alone on a day like today."

"Never fear," he patted her hand where it lay on his forearm. "We've trained her well. She'll be back soon."

Then we were past them and the words and thoughts of other parents also traversing the graveled path washed over me.

'_It's so beautiful here.'_

'_Reminds me of that palace in France I saw.'_

'_I can't believe we're paying this much in tuition, but it's worth it.'_

'_Ah school days. Youth is wasted on the young.'_

'_What on earth does Lizzie have to complain about? This school is wonderful. Her letters don't do it justice at all.'_

'_When can I get out of here? There's a train in half an hour. If I say goodbye now I'll just make it to the station in time.'_

'_Octavius? Where did that child get off to?' He'll be the death of me, the way he wanders.'_

We pushed past the knot of parents bottlenecked by the fountain and emerged on the other side of it.

A laugh, unmistakably Clara's, came from above. I glanced up to see movement in the open window on the third floor.

"Whoops!"

A tiny figure all in pink with a big bow in its flaxen locks went flying downward. There was no respiration or heartbeat, and it was too small to be a child so I didn't bother to catch it, instead letting it splash into the fountain.

"Good decision, son," Carlisle whispered.

He'd seen me tense up in preparation in case it had been Clara falling out the window rather than her doll. To catch either one I'd have had to use vampiric speed, and with all the parents and students around, that wouldn't have been smart.

Some of the parents were exclaiming and pointing to doll floating in the large stone basin. They'd all realized it was a toy and not a baby and were laughing at their initial reactions.

A moment later Clara came running out of the dorm's side door, breathless from hurrying down the stairs. She barked her knees climbing on the lip of the basin and leaned over to grab hold of her doll's skirt.

"Got it!" she muttered triumphantly.

Slithering back off the fountain, she held the doll by its foot and shook the excess water off it, the way you'd shake water off a sodden umbrella.

"Hey," Miriam exclaimed as some of the water from the doll shook off onto her.

'_My shirt! I just got it for Christmas.' _

She looked down at the discolored spots where the fountain water had sprayed across her white blouse.

"Sorry, Miriam," Clara backed away, catching sight of the angry look on Miriam's face. "I uh, have to get back to my parents. I'll see you later."

She turned and ran for the door, dropping her doll on the gravel and dashing back to pick it up again before disappearing into the dorm.

Miriam looked after her in disgust.

'_I can't believe I'm in the same grade as that…that…child,"_ she thought derisively.

Her vitriolic tone of thought surprised me. Miriam's thought were usually very logical and even keeled. The absence of her parents must be affecting her.

I looked over at Carlisle.

He was contemplating the spectacle with a good deal of amusement, while mentally going through the proper procedures for treating broken bones from a fall. Even though it was just a doll, his medical mind was constantly reviewing what to do in case of crisis. It was one of many qualities I admired about him.

Ned came careening around the corner of the girls' dormitory, mitt in hand. He'd run the back way by the stables to his room in the boys' dormitory in the rear. When he saw the knot of students and parents at the fountain, he skidded to a halt, throwing up gravel, then ran the long way around the back of the fountain to stop before a couple and their adult daughter.

"Mom, dad, sis. Here it is!"

He held his baseball mitt aloft.

"I caught a fly ball with it last week. It's great."

He really meant 'I'm great' and like a puppy dog throwing a dead rat down at his masters' feet, he was waiting for approval from his family.

Ned's father was a stocky, robust man with lots of thick blonde hair barely contained by the hat he'd jammed down on it.

"Good job, m'boy. Good job," he told Ned.

"That's wonderful, sweetheart," said his mother, distractedly.

She was also blonde, but more of a pale platinum shade than the exuberant yellow of her husband's hair. Where he was red faced and hearty looking, she was pale with grey blue eyes that looked worried.

"So what have you done this week?" asked his sister, unimpressed by Ned's past glories.

She was taller than her father. I couldn't see her hair, for she was wearing one of those closefitting hats that covered all of the back of her head and most of her forehead. Its tiny brim did nothing to conceal the piercing blue eyes she shared with her brother and father.

"More than you, I'm sure," Ned shot back.

"I," his sister informed him coldly, "have a job, which is more than I can say for you."

"Children," their mother said warningly, with the air of one who'd had to break up fights many times before.

"Listen to your mother," their father said absently, his eyes on a father and son standing quietly near the far end of the building.

'_Something's wrong over there,'_ he thought. _'I'll have to ask Ned about those two later, away from the girls.'_

Curious, I allowed my eyes to drift over to the two he was thinking about.

With a shock, I realized it was Hartley Saunders and the man who had to be his father. The thoughts and noise of the other humans near me had drowned out the two standing farther away.

Hartley bore a strong resemblance to his father. Their hair, eye color, noses and chins were the same. Mr. Saunders was a good bit taller than his son, but they bore the same grim expressions on their faces.

They stood about a foot or so apart, but the way they held themselves made it seem like they were further away from each other. It was as if the tension inside them caused them to shrink in upon themselves. While other people stood in relaxed poses, bumping elbows or shoulders without the least bit of concern, Hartley and Mr. Saunders kept their arms stiffly at their sides, guarding against unintentional physical contact.

I strained to hear their thoughts, and wasn't surprised to find similarities there as well. They were both wishing the day would end soon. Hartley was wondering why his father bothered to show up since it was obvious he just wanted to forget Hartley existed. He wished his father would go home to his new wife and baby. Mr. Saunders was wondering why he'd bothered to come since Hartley obviously didn't want him there and still blamed him for his mother's death.

"Edward?"

I wrenched my thoughts away from the Saunders' family tragedy at Carlisle's voice.

"Yes?"

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine," I told him.

The concern in his eyes and uncertainty in his thoughts told me that he didn't believe it, but he let it go.

"We'll talk about it at home?" he suggested as a family strolled by.

"At home, yes."

Majorie Van Houten and her entourage rounded the corner of the girls' dormitory. Somehow she'd cast herself in the role of tour guide and was leading not only her own parents, but the parents of her entourage of sycophants as well.

She caught sight of me and began moving closer, her plans to greet me and engage myself and Carlisle in conversation so as to show off her social skills solidifying with each step.

"In fact, let's leave now," I said, grabbing Carlisle's arm and tugging as I began walking quickly towards the trees hiding the wall surrounding the school grounds.

"But isn't the front gate that way?" asked my adopted father.

"We'll jump the fence," I told him shortly.

He glanced over his shoulder, but followed obediently. I saw in his mind's eye the thwarted expression on Marjorie Van Houten's face and I caught the flash of humor and understanding in his thoughts.

'_She's just a girl, Edward,'_ he thought at me_. 'Not a dragon.'_

I spoke quickly and quietly under my breath.

"In a fight between Marjorie and a dragon, I'd place my money on the girl and not the dragon."

He laughed and followed me into the trees. We found a secluded spot, leapt the fence and decided to run home rather than take the train.

Carlisle was anxious to get back to Esme, and I'd had quite enough of human company for a while. Sometimes the constant bombardment of thoughts became tiresome. Not that I could be tired any more, I was just sick of dealing with the interior dramas as well as the ones spoken out loud.

Later that night when we were running back to the farm house after our hunt, I found myself looking forward to telling Esme about Parents' Day, and filling Carlisle in on the things he hadn't heard in the humans' thoughts. As we gained the porch of the farmhouse, slowing to file through the doorway, it struck me. I was home.

o-o-o

The night passed all too quickly, full as it was of conversation and laughter. I caught the early train to school, and trudged through the town to Saint Anselm Academy's gates. The moment I passed through them I knew something was wrong.

There were voices coming from outside the girls' dorm. No one was loitering around the front of the school as usual. With increasing trepidation, I hurried at human speed down the center drive, jogging away from the front door of the main building to round the edge of the girls' dormitory.

Boys and girls clad in their distinctive burgundy jackets and white shirts surrounded the fountain. Several girls were crying quietly as others looked on in shock. The boys stared down at the stone basin grimly, or averted their faces.

As I came closer I could smell it, the faint aroma of decay. There was no blood scent, thankfully, but something was dead, and hadn't been dead for very long.

"Who is it? Does anyone know?"

"Why? Why would she do something like that?"

"It's suicide, it has to be. She must've jumped from the top of the dormitory."

"Oh God, it's so horrible."

"Someone's got to tell a teacher. Why hasn't anyone called a teacher yet?"

The question, repeated with a note of rising hysteria from a brown haired girl clutching the hand of a friend, silenced the others for a moment, but I could still hear their thoughts.

'_I thought someone else went to fetch Mr. Clarence.'_

'_A teacher? Who is she fooling? No one wants to go tell a teacher someone's dead. Besides, what's a teacher going to do?'_

'_I think I'm going to be sick.'_

'_I've never seen a dead body before.'_

'_Who is she? I can't see her face. If someone would just move her hair or turn her over…'_

'_She got what she deserved.'_

I stopped short at the edge of the crowd of humans.

She got what she deserved? Who'd thought that? I started scanning the faces of the humans. There were more of them than I'd first thought. As I'd drawn near to the fountain, so had several others from the opposite direction.

Impatient now, I pushed through the crowd and wound up in the first row of spectators.

The body lay face down in the broad stone basin of the fountain. It was female, going by the girlish white nightgown stuck to its back and legs. The arms were tucked under the body and the darkish hair was spread out in the water. No, not dark, red. It only appeared to be dark because it was sodden. I saw the smattering of freckles on her ankle before I caught her unique scent and I knew.

It was Clara lying dead in the fountain.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter Twelve

"What's all this? Why are you all standing around? Off to class with you."

The irritated voice of the stable master came closer as the man strode over to the students. He'd been up all night with a sick foal and was not in the best of moods.

I figured his mood was about to get worse.

'What the…? Why are those girls crying?'

Warier now, his steps slowed as he came closer to the fountain. Still no one answered his question. Instead, the crowd parted in order to let him through. He gave them some hard looks, but passed by them without speaking until he came to a stop at the stone rim and saw for himself why we'd gathered.

The students were completely silent, and the burbling of the water forced up through a stone spigot in the middle of the basin's circle was the only sound as the man stared in shock.

"Holy mother of God," he whispered, then looked around wildly, catching sight of some students whose names he knew.

"MacLeod, get the Headmaster immediately."

An auburn haired skinny boy with freckles jumped at the harshness of his tone and took off running towards the boys' dormitory.

"Jurgenson, you go find the nurse."

A towheaded fourth year student nodded and turned to go, then stopped and said, "But she's not on duty yet, it's still early."

The stable master glared. "Then go find the headmistress and tell her to get the nurse here now."

"Shouldn't we get the police?" another boy, one I didn't recognize, asked.

The man barked out an ugly laugh.

"We'll let the Headmaster worry about that. The rest of you, get to class before I take a horsewhip to you all."

I made sure I was one of the last to leave the area. Horsewhips didn't frighten me. Besides, I knew the man was bluffing. He'd sooner horsewhip the goose that laid the golden eggs than one of the tuition paying students. I listened intently to the thoughts of the students flowing past me, but I couldn't find it again, the harsh mental 'voice' of the one who'd thought Clara deserved to die.

There were too many different people, different thoughts, to pull one thread out of the tapestry of mental voices.

Eventually I too had to turn and go to class or risk attracting attention.

Mr. Pitcairn couldn't understand why his students were so distracted in first period. As usual, the teachers were the last to know what was going on. The whispers were beginning to get on his nerves.

When Yvonne came in ten minutes late, he snapped at her. She began to sniffle. He immediately felt bad, but didn't know how to remedy the situation. He was baffled by what he saw as her over-reaction.

As he stood there, chalk in hand, the door opened and Mr. Clarence, the headmaster, walked in. He motioned to Pitcairn, and held a whispered conversation in the doorway.

"Pitcairn, we're going to dismiss class for the day."

"But we just lost a day to Parents' Day."

A flash of irritation crossed the headmaster's face and thoughts.

'Who is he to question my decisions? I pay his salary.'

"Never mind that. A student is dead."

"What? Who?"

The math teacher's thoughts were a jumble of shocked conjectures.

"One of the girls, Clara Spencer."

Pitcairn stiffened. He knew Clara. She'd left love poems on his desk back in September. He'd thrown them away, ignoring her overtures and as he'd hoped, she'd stopped. He'd heard she was mooning over the French teacher, though Sieyes hadn't mentioned anything about getting poems. Pitcairn wondered if that was because Clara was as bad at French composition as she was at math, then cursed himself for being uncharitable towards the dead.

"That's…horrible."

"Quite."

Mr. Pitcairn meant horrible for Clara and her family, but Mr. Clarence's thoughts were on the school and its reputation.

"What shall I tell the students?"

"Nothing, just send the day students home and tell the boarders there'll be an assembly after lunch and they're to stay in their rooms until the lunch bell rings."

The math teacher nodded, and Mr. Clarence left abruptly.

Yvonne continued to sniffle quietly into her handkerchief, grieving over Clara, while the other students tried to pretend they hadn't been eavesdropping on their teacher. They'd only heard bits and pieces. I knew what Pitcairn was going to say before he opened his mouth, so I quietly pulled my math book off my desk and put it in my satchel.

Ordinarily, the news that they were getting released from class early would have sparked outbursts of celebration, but to their credit, the humans got up quietly from their desks and filed out of the classroom.

Yvonne remained seated. Pitcairn was gathering up his own belongings and didn't notice.

I hesitated by her desk.

"Yvonne, would you like me to walk you to your dormitory?" I asked, surprising myself.

I really shouldn't get involved. I had to keep my distance. I knew that, but something about Yvonne's woebegone face pulled at me.

She crushed her handkerchief in her hand and stared up at me with watery eyes.

"Oh no, I'll be fine," she lied.

"Come on," I jerked my chin towards the doorway. "I'm going that way anyhow."

She took a long jerky breath and picked up her math book. I grabbed her satchel and carried it to the doorway.

The halls were filled with students wandering about. I saw Mr. Clarence emerge from another classroom further down the hall. A moment later it began to empty as well, spilling more bodies out into the already crowded hall.

"Come on, I know a shortcut," I told Yvonne.

She nodded desultorily and followed. It wasn't really a short cut, but I figured the back passage that led down to the service entrance would be less crowded, and it was.

"I was jealous of her," Yvonne said, keeping her eyes firmly on the ground as she walked beside me.

I knew it already. She was blaming herself for not liking Clara, for every unkind thought she'd ever had about the girl.

I made a noncommittal noise and continued to guide her down the back halls.

"She always seemed so happy. She had so many friends. I don't understand how this could have happened."

The friends Yvonne was referring to included me. I guess I shouldn't have been surprised for I'd made it a point to sit with Ned and his group at lunch nearly every day. Had I been a friend to Clara? Not really. I'd kept my distance, listened rather than engaged in their conversations. Ned was such an egoist that it hadn't mattered to him, but I knew the others noticed, and it bothered them.

"I don't know," I told her. "I can't understand it either."

I didn't, not really. There'd been nothing in Clara's thoughts on Parents Day to hint at suicide. She'd been embarrassed about dropping her doll in the fountain, about having all those people see that she still kept a doll. She'd been excited to see her parents, to show them her room.

Then there was that disturbing thought from the crowd, that Clara had somehow deserved death. To the best of my knowledge, no one hated the little red headed girl.

Yvonne may have envied Clara's supposed closeness with me, but she certainly hadn't hated the girl.

"I wish I'd talked to her more. I feel like I didn't really know her."

What could I say to that? No one at the school really knew me either, and that was how I liked it.

"Clara liked everyone. You would've gotten along well," I said at last.

It was true. Clara's mind hadn't been terribly critical. She lived in the moment, and when people were kind to her she gave back affection readily.

Yvonne smiled through her tears.

"Do you really think so?"

"I know it."

I came to a stop by the side entrance of the girls' dormitory.

"We're here."

"Oh, yes."

Yvonne shook herself, straightened her shoulders and thrust her handkerchief in her jacket pocket.

"Thank you for walking me back."

Her hair was down to her shoulders now, and still as frizzy and flyaway as it had been when it was shorter. A few strands were stuck to her cheeks by the dampness left behind by her tears. I was struck by how vulnerable she was, how fragile. Most of the other students were using the interior halls. We were alone. Anyone or anything, a monster like myself, could kill her and leave without being detected.

"It was nothing," I returned politely.

I watched as she opened the door and disappeared within. It wasn't politeness, but worry. I was worried about Yvonne's naivety, her lack of basic self-preservation, and about what had happened to Clara.

Something wasn't right about Clara's death.

I said as much to Carlisle when I got back to the farmhouse.

"What do you intend to do about it?" he asked.

"Do? What can I do? I'm supposed to be avoiding attention, remember?"

'_I taught him that,'_ thought Carlisle. _'Does he blame me for it?'_

"Of course I don't blame you." I answered his thought out loud. "I'd just as likely blame the Volturi for setting up the rules of this existence."

Esme came in from the kitchen where she'd been oiling the wood burning stove that we never used. It had come with the house.

"What's this about the Volturi?"

Esme was curious about them. Carlisle had told her the basics when she woke from her transformation. She remained fascinated and fearful. Good. From what Carlisle let slip in his thoughts and memories, she was right to be frightened.

"Nothing," he reassured her. "It's not important."

Esme folded the oil soaked rag in her hand, turned, and tossed it deftly onto the stove, then made her way into the parlor.

"If it has the both of you looking so grim, then it seems important to me."

"It's not the Volturi, it's Clara," I explained.

"The girl who died?"

Esme had been listening to the conversation I'd started with Carlisle when I first walked in the door. Privacy was a luxury vampires living together had to do without. We could hear everything.

"Yes," said Carlisle.

He was concerned that yet another death would remind her of the trapper she'd killed. Her eyes were back to their vegetarian amber state. He didn't want to see them turn red again.

He shouldn't have worried. Esme's thoughts were focused on how the death of a fellow schoolmate was affecting me.

"It bothers me," I admitted. "Clara wasn't suicidal."

Esme frowned.

"But I thought you said you could only hear thoughts when you're around people. What if something happened later on that made her sad and she couldn't bear it?"

Her thoughts flew to the child she'd lost, and fuzzy recollections of the despair that caused her to throw herself from a cliff.

I made an effort to make sure my tone of voice was as gentle as possible.

"Nothing happened to Clara, nothing worse than accidentally dropping her doll out the window, and she got it back right away."

"I saw the child yesterday," Carlisle reminded her. "She seemed happy and healthy. A little clumsy perhaps." He clearly remembered her barking her shins on the edge of the fountain. "But there was nothing in her demeanor to make me think she might harm herself."

"Then if it wasn't suicide, what was it?" Esme asked. "An accident? Murder?"

"I don't know, but I want to find out," I said.

It was the right answer in Carlisle's mind.

'_He's finally seeing the humans as more than just prey,'_ he thought.

I didn't have the heart to tell him that I'd never have the sort of compassion for them that he did, that my feelings for them were no more than curiosity, and a niggling sense of obligation to my classmates.

"But how?" wondered Esme.

Even though it was ridiculous, she was worried for me. I was practically indestructible, yet Esme chose to fear for me. Perhaps it took her mind off her own concerns.

"I'll become a boarding student."

Dismay flashed through her at the thought of losing me.

'Oh no, am I driving him away? I can't lose Edward. That would break Carlisle's heart.'

"I'll be back every weekend," I was quick to assure her. "I just need to be there if I'm to find out what happened to Clara."

"But what excuse will you give?" Esme didn't want anyone to think Carlisle had thrown me out of the house.

"What about the science project?" suggested Carlisle.

I looked at him blankly. The end of term project wasn't due until the end of the year. The teacher had only just given us the detailed instructions before having to ready the class for Parents Day, though we'd been warned repeatedly about the project since the Fall term. We had a while before we needed to submit our proposals.

"If you choose a project that requires constant care and attention, you'd have to be on campus for it to work."

"I'm sure Miriam will volunteer to do any checking that's needed."

Miriam was fastidious to a fault, and she was my lab partner. She'd go along with any suggestion I made if I charmed her enough, but she'd also insist on doing the lion's share of the work.

"But would that be chivalrous? To force a lady to keep watch over the project?"

I smiled. Trust Carlisle to come up with an honorable solution, one that the Headmaster couldn't very well argue with since the school prided itself on instilling honor in the students.

Sensing victory, Carlisle smiled back. His mind began to fill with plans, including a stray thought about contacting an old friend of his, a retired detective in Dorset, England. Then the thought was gone, lost in the words he intended to use on Headmaster Clarence.

"I'll contact the Headmaster tomorrow and make arrangements for you to move into the boys' dormitory."

"Assuming school will resume tomorrow," I sighed. "They cancelled classes today."

"Will there be a funeral?" Esme asked hesitantly.

She wondered if I'd want to attend or if it would be too difficult. The only difficulty I foresaw was restraining myself from feasting on the attendees.

"Probably not for a few days," Carlisle told her. "There will be certain legal issues the school will have to attend to. The police are usually notified in cases of suicide."

"Oh."

Esme began to wonder if the police had been notified when she disappeared, or if anyone besides her landlord even realized she'd gone. She decided that she didn't care, that her new life was more important now. I was glad for her sake that she had no regrets. I had plenty of regrets. I knew I should care more about what happened to Clara. I'd pretended to eat lunch with her and her friends for months.

Instead I felt mostly curiosity, and an insatiable desire to find out what had really happened. Most of all, I wanted to know who in the crowd of students felt Clara deserved to die.

"I expect the Headmaster and Headmistress will have some sort of a farewell assembly for Clara," I told Esme. "If I'm living on campus I'll be able to attend it."

That seemed to satisfy her.

The memorial assembly was right before lunch the very next day. I deposited my belongings in an empty room before school after Carlisle made arrangements with a harried and distracted Mr. Clarence. He was grateful for the extra money my boarding would bring, but his thoughts were mainly on the assembly and his hope that it would get the students to forget Clara's death and resume their studies quickly.

The service was long and run entirely by Mr. Clarence. Mrs. Clarence and the teachers sat in carved wooden chairs at the back of the raised stage as he stood at the podium, surrendering it briefly to the school chaplain before taking it back to read a eulogy that could've worked for any dead student, male or female, first year or fourth year.

I sat in the back of the auditorium and eavesdropped on the thoughts of the students around me. The back was where the first year students sat, and not many of them had known Clara. They were bored. Their shallowness and lack of compassion were almost a relief compared to the grief-stricken thoughts coming from the rows in front. I searched, but didn't find anyone thinking that Clara deserved to die. There were too many thoughts to sift through.

After the notes of the ending hymn died away, the headmaster and headmistress walked down the steps of the platform and led the teachers down the aisle to exit through the back. I scanned their thoughts as they passed me. Some were regretting that they hadn't done more to help Clara. Others, who hadn't had her in their class, were regretting the loss of class time, while still others were stricken with grief over a young life cut short. Mrs. Clarence's thoughts were the most striking.

She tended to think in pictures and her memories were vividly disturbing. Blood pooled on white sheets, making her light-headed. The last thing she'd seen were the faces of her husband and attending doctor looming large over her. She'd miscarried, badly, and lost not only her baby daughter, but any hope of ever having another baby.

'I can't go back there. I can't keep remembering every time a child dies,' she chided herself. 'Keep them at arms' length, try not to care so much. That's the only way to survive.'

The students followed the teachers obediently out of the auditorium, first the front row, then the second, and so on. The majority of them were thinking of what the cafeteria planned to serve for lunch since it was nearly noon.

Sighing, I leaned back in my chair and blocked them all out. This was getting me nowhere. I'd never find out what happened with Clara this way. It was time to use a different technique.


	13. Chapter 13

**A/N: Here's a Memorial Day gift for you. Having a day off means I have time to post! The story is beginning to wind down, and the solution to the mystery is just around the corner. Leave a review and let me know what you think.**

Chapter Thirteen

"Are you sure about this, Edward?" Miriam asked.

We were eating lunch at the same table, or rather she was eating and I was dunking my bread roll in a bowl of stew and smearing it on the plate instead of putting it in my mouth.

"No one else is doing a plant based project, and I'm happy to take the measurements at night. I don't sleep much," I told her.

She cast an uncertain glance at the project proposal I'd jotted down on paper, and lifted the top sheet to reread the information on the next one down.

"You'll have to get permission to visit the laboratory at night, but it is a fascinating idea," she admitted. "Measuring the growth rate of plants exposed to increasing levels of these chemicals could prove invaluable for farmers. If we find the right combination of fertilizing agents, it could revolutionize agriculture."

Her mind began running through the various ways plant growth could be accelerated, and the formulas we'd need to use in our lab report. The idea took hold in her imagination.

"I don't care much for farming, but we all have to eat," I said, carefully keeping any trace of humor out of my voice.

She didn't need to know that my diet was liquid and carnivorous.

Miriam glanced at my untouched stew.

"You should have chosen the chicken fricassee," she commented.

"The stew's a bit too salty for me," I lied. "I'll eat an apple back in my dorm room later."

The girl frowned, lines creasing the area between her eyebrows.

"You really ought to eat more."

I sighed internally. She was beginning to worry about my diet. It wasn't because she cared about me, though she was fascinated in spite of herself. It was more that Miriam was practical. She needed my help as a lab partner, and that made her concerned about my health. The science project I'd chosen required that the sample plants be exposed to a chemical compound several times a day and night. It was labor intensive and she needed me to stay healthy.

"I eat enough."

I'd just drained two full grown deer the night before, and my eyes were amber, not black, when I stared at myself in the mirror that morning.

"If you say so," she answered doubtfully. She didn't believe me. She thought I was too pale, but decided to drop it, averting her eyes when she realized she was staring at my skin.

"You'll submit the proposal today?" I'd already seen in her mind that she'd decided to do so, but it didn't hurt to act as if I didn't know.

"Of course," she smiled, then a pained look came into her eyes as she caught sight of Ned and his group over my shoulder.

"They miss her, don't they?" she asked softly.

I glanced back as though trying to understand who she was talking about. It was my second lunch as a boarding student, and I'd avoided Ned and his friends at breakfast by pretending to oversleep. I could hear their thoughts clearly since the lunch room was mostly empty.

Dorothy's were the worst. She kept wondering why it happened, blaming herself for sleeping through the night instead of waking up when Clara was dying. Ned's were bewildered. He was lost without a physical course of action to take, and confused about why Clara did it. Harriet wasn't sure it was suicide, and was shoving down her emotions in order to think logically about who could have wanted Clara dead. She wasn't coming up with any answers.

Steven and Gordon were uncomfortable, not knowing what to say or do, and frustrated about it.

"Yeah, they do," I answered softly.

Miriam plucked my plate and bowl off my tray and stacked them on her own.

"Go on, I'll take your things back to the kitchen counter."

She thought she was doing me a favor. How could I tell her that the last thing I wanted to do was sit down with the people mourning Clara the most?

"Thank you."

I got up from the table and walked over to the one by the kitchen door favored by Ned whenever it was raining outside.

"Hi."

Dorothy turned around at my voice. Her eyes were red rimmed from crying.

"Oh Edward, it's so awful isn't it? Eating lunch without Clara?"

"Yes," I said after an uncomfortable pause. What else could I say?

"So you're a boarder now?" asked Steven.

He'd decided to set aside his dislike of me in light of Clara's death. I decided to be pleasant in return.

"Yes, Miriam and I are doing a plant experiment for science class and I'll need to be on hand for it."

"You're doing plants?" The incredulity in Ned's voice was almost insulting. "Gordon and I are doing velocity."

Trust that pair to come up with a science project where they could incorporate baseball.

The conversation drifted to science class, much to Steven's joy. He, more than Gordon, was uncomfortable with grief. Apart from Harriet none of the others thought Clara's death was anything but suicide. Rumor had it that the lock on the door to the roof at the top of the girls' dormitory was broken. Everyone thought she'd climbed up to the roof and jumped, landing face down in the fountain.

It was too early for reports from the police to leak out to the students. When they did, they'd discover that she'd drowned. Her body had no blood scent on it, as it would've if she'd fallen. Even in water, blood would've spilled, especially in a concrete fountain with all those hard edges for a body to fall on.

I still had some time before people realized it was murder, and the murderer realized people would start asking questions as well.

0-0-0

"I thought we'd revisit the Moonlight Sonata today," Miss Wentworth said as she retrieved the sheaf of sheet music she wanted.

Her eyes were red rimmed from crying.

She coughed a little and glanced at me apologetically.

"It seemed appropriate, considering the memorial service was only yesterday. She used to sleepwalk you know."

"Clara?" I asked, surprised.

Miss Wentworth nodded. "Last year I caught her doing it twice the first semester. I'm the house mother for the second year girls, you know."

I didn't know. It made sense though, since each floor of the dormitory buildings housed students from the different grade levels. It stood to reason that each floor would have an adult assigned to it as well as student corridor monitors.

My piano teacher looked down at the ivory and black keys and touched one gently.

"Clara was such a tiny thing. Did you know her?"

She looked back at me after asking her question. We were both sitting on the piano bench, and she was gazing directly into my eyes seeking something there. Reassurance? A human desire for shared emotion? I'd have to try to emulate it.

I looked down at my hands. I didn't think I could fake the sadness she wanted to see in my eyes.

"Yeah, I knew her."

"Ah, I'm so sorry."

She patted my shoulder.

"If you need to talk about it, about losing her…" she trailed off.

"Thank you," I said, oddly touched by her thoughts.

She was worried about me, worried that Clara's suicide could spark similar thoughts in me. I could rip her throat out in seconds, and she was afraid for me, and not of me.

The irony of it took me by surprise.

"I think Moonlight Sonata is the perfect choice for today," I said, stretching my fingers over the keyboard.

Miss Wentworth sat quietly as my fingers moved across the keys. I let her memories of finding Clara and leading her back to her room and the knowledge that the girl would never wander in the moonlight ever again infuse my playing.

By the time I stopped, tears were flowing freely down her cheeks.

She cleared her throat.

"I think that's enough for today," she said softly.

I nodded and left her to her grief.

Miss Wentworth was a kind woman. I, on the other hand, wanted justice for the girl. I was beginning to see how Carlisle could get wrapped up in the humans' emotions. I couldn't afford to be, not if I was serious about finding Clara's killer.

0-0-0

"I'm telling you, Walter Johnson is the best pitcher in the world," Steven maintained, crossing his arms and glaring at Gordon.

"How can you say that when Sam Jones pitches perfect no-hitters? He demolished the Philadelphia As back in September. Zero runs, Gordon. The As got zero runs against him."

Gordon's eyes were narrowed. He was blustering, intent on making Steven admit that he was wrong. Steven wasn't about to change his opinion and went on the offensive.

"Johnson struck out three thousand batters. One no hitter doesn't even touch that record. Even Howard Ehnke can pitch a no hitter. Besides, everyone knows Sam Jones is a chump who hits batters with the ball on purpose."

Gordon drew in long outraged breath and turned to Ned for support.

"What do you think, Ned. Is Walter Johnson or Sam Jones the best pitcher?"

We were standing by the steps of the school's main building. The rain storm passed and it was merely cloudy outside, the grey mass overhead a welcome and familiar covering for me. I was leaning against the stone plinth where the banister ended, as though I were tired from a long day of school.

Classes were over and it was too early for dinner. The serious students were in their dorm rooms or the library getting a head start on their studies for the next day. Needless to say, Ned and his friends were loitering along with the other procrastinators. I'd scanned the minds of everyone outdoors, but found no thoughts of murder.

For once Ned was fixated on something other than baseball. There were two automobiles parked in the drive. He was wondering how fast they could go, and had to wrench his thoughts back to what his friends were discussing.

"What? Oh, that's obvious, it's…"

He trailed off as he noticed Dorothy flying down the stairs. Her eyes were red rimmed, and her thoughts agitated as she skidded to a stop in front of us, curls bouncing as they settled around her face.

"Have you seen Harriet? It's so awful. They're in my room, our room, I mean it was our room, and they're going through Clara's things. They're reading her diary and her poetry, and it's just too horrible."

With that she burst into tears and covered her face with her hands.

Ned, Gordon, and Steven stared in appalled shock for a moment, not knowing what to do. I'd been around Carlisle enough to know that Dorothy was in danger of hyperventilating, so I stepped forward and patted her gently on the shoulder.

"It's going to be alright," I told her in my best imitation of Carlisle's beside manner.

She groaned and to my dismay, and Ned's, turned her face to my chest and slumped against me, continuing to cry. I found myself patting her back and shoulders, thankful for the thick wool uniform jacket I wore. It was preventing Dorothy from realizing how cold and lifeless my body really was. I had to keep reminding myself how fragile she was so that my pats wouldn't leave bruises. Eiderdown, dandelion fluff. I had to touch her as though she'd blow away in a puff of wind unless I was very careful.

Ned, instantly jealous, pulled her away from me and grabbed her by the shoulders, forcing her to look into his face. I was happy to allow him to take charge of the girl.

"Dorothy, who is in your room? Do you want me to beat them up? I'll beat them within an inch of their lives if you'd like!"

Dorothy's face crumpled and she shook her head slowly.

"You can't, it's the police. They're detectives from the city. They're reading Clara's love poems, and going through her drawers, and all her things."

"Love poems?" Ned echoed incredulously.

He loathed English class, and couldn't believe that anyone would read poetry voluntarily let alone write it.

Dorothy nodded.

"She wrote them all the time. She was really good at it too."

Steven and Gordon exchanged disbelieving looks behind Dorothy's back. They knew Clara wasn't exactly an award winning student.

Ned's eyebrow quirked as a thought occurred to him.

"Did she write any about me?"

Dorothy swallowed. I saw in her thoughts that Clara wrote about whoever she was sweet on at the time, male teachers who struck her fancy, and lately, me. She didn't want to hurt Ned's feelings, and the realization of the fact that the police now knew that Clara was infatuated with some of the staff could have some nasty repercussions was beginning to overwhelm her.

"I, you, I mean…I have to go find Harriet," she stuttered, and pulling out of Ned's grip, she ran off back up the steps towards the indoor entrance of the girls dorm.

Ned took that as a sign that Clara had written about him and was enormously pleased.

I, on the other hand, was not. I knew the girl was infatuated with me, even though I'd given her no encouragement. Thankfully, she'd been too shy to press it, but what had she written in her poems? Would I be a suspect now? This was exactly the sort of attention I needed to avoid. I needed to know what the police were thinking and I couldn't do it outside.

"Hey, where're you going?" Ned asked when I was halfway up the steps.

"To my dorm room," I lied. "I need to start studying for the biology test tomorrow."

'_What a chump!'_ thought Ned, and turned back to Gordon and Steven to discuss the new development.

As I entered the foyer of the school I saw lots of other students congregating around the main staircase. Word had spread that the police were visiting. Four men, strangers, were making their way down the steps. Some carried official looking cases, and what looked like boxes of Clara's things. The man leading the way was empty handed. He was older, his hair grayish black, and his face looked as though it was just beginning to melt, the skin hanging lax in its deep set wrinkles. He'd lost a lot of weight recently, and his breath was a bit labored, just from walking down the stairs.

I didn't have to have Carlisle's training to know that he was ill. My predator's instinct screamed at me that this was weak prey, easy prey.

His sharp brown eyes scanned the masses of students. With a shock I realized he was looking for me, he just didn't know it. He'd read a poem of Clara's that described an Adonis with red hair.

I moved back a little so that I stood under an electric bulb which had burned out the day before. In the shadows as I was, my hair appeared more dark than red.

Mr. Clarence, the headmaster, came hurrying down the steps behind them.

The detective stopped, with a flash of annoyance, halting his team as he waited for Mr. Clarence to catch up.

"I hope my staff extended you every courtesy during your visit, Inspector Byrne," he said as he dodged around the other detectives to get to their leader.

"You'll have a chance to show us more cooperation when we come back tomorrow," Byrne promised.

He tipped his fedora, and continued down the stairs, scanning students as he went. He noted Ted MacLeod, a skinny fourth year, and Sean Morris, the priest in training from my English class. Their red-hued hair caught his attention, and he made a mental note to interview them when he returned. I remained where I was, knowing that movement is the quickest way to get attention in the wild. This man, Inspector Byrne, was a hunter, like I was.

Byrne was making other mental notes as he ignored Mr. Clarence's repeated assurances that the school would cooperate in any way possible. His suspicions weren't really focused on the red headed students, but on the teachers who figured so prominently in Clara's fanciful poems. Mr. Pitcairn, and Mr. Sieyes were his targets for now. Her poems featuring them had been full of the sort of innuendo found in the romance novels she and Dorothy adored.

_Blackmail was an excellent motive for murder._

With that thought he swept through the students and led his team outside to the cars.

Mr. Clarence stood on the staircase and watched them go. He realized that Byrne wasn't listening to him, and it irked him. It irked him even more that Clara's parents had made such a fuss, insisting that detectives from the city be brought in to investigate. Mr. Clarence had a relationship of mutual protectiveness with the police of the town. He could rely on their discretion. That wasn't the case with detectives from the city.

Pressing his lips together in irritation, he turned and disappeared up the staircase.

By dinnertime the entire student body knew that Clara had been murdered. Peter skittered from table to table spreading the word that bruises were found on the back of her neck where someone had held her face down under the water. By dessert a table of first year girls were nearly in hysterics.

I sat with Miriam instead of with Ned's group, using the pretext of discussing our science project. Miriam usually sat at a table near where the headmaster and staff sat. I wanted to get their thoughts on the murder.

Unfortunately, only Mr. and Mrs. Clarence, and the live-in teachers who doubled as dorm mothers and dorm fathers showed up. The married teachers all ate in their cottages with their spouses so Mr. Pitcairn and Mr. Sieyes weren't there. Mr. Chen showed up late, and got the evil eyed glare of Mr. Clarence for his tardiness. Miss Lucey skipped dinner. The other staff members weren't so obliging as to think "It was me, I killed Clara" for me so the meal was a complete waste.

It was also an uncomfortable experience, because Miriam was beginning to think that something was wrong with me since she'd never seen me actually put food in my mouth.

"Are you feeling alright, Edward?" she asked at last after I'd pushed the meatloaf around my plate for the past five minutes.

I could see in her thoughts that she was concerned enough to go consult the nurse, so I braced myself and brought a forkful of the noxious smelling brown mass to my mouth, chewed and swallowed.

"I'm fine, I just don't like the cafeteria meatloaf. It doesn't compare to my mother's."

I had no idea if that were true or not. I didn't remember my mother's meatloaf, or any of her other recipes. I barely remembered her face.

"Would you like me to go get you something else?" she asked.

"That won't be necessary," I smiled. "I'll choke this down somehow."

My smile dazzled her. She began thinking about the proportions of my face, and the symmetry of cheekbones to chin ratio.

"If you change your mind, I'll be happy to go get you something. I think there's still some apple pie for dessert. I insist!"

Ignoring my protests, she whisked away to the dessert table. While she was gone, I wrapped the remaining meatloaf in my napkin and placed it on the floor where the janitorial staff would have to deal with it.

There was no help for the apple pie though, she stayed with me, watching as I ingested every last bite, until she was satisfied that I'd had enough nourishment.

The human food sat in my stomach like a rock. I had to wait for some privacy to vomit it back up, and the boys latrines were hardly the place for that, as the males of the school tended to visit it as much for the opportunity to smoke pilfered cigarettes and talk as they did to use the facilities. I'd have to make my way outside, and dispose of the food in the bushes.

I nodded my thanks and goodbye to Miriam, who offered to take our trays to the kitchen window, and made my way towards the door.

The hysteria was rising at the table of first years seated near the door.

"This is ridiculous," hissed Mr. Clarence to his wife as I passed their table. "Those girls are making a spectacle of themselves and frightening the other students."

"I'll take care of it," Mrs. Clarence said, tight lipped and irritated that she had to interrupt her meal to deal with a bunch of silly girls.

She rose from her seat and stalked over to the first year girls' table, passing me.

One of the students, Abigail Brown, was sobbing in reaction to the imagined details the other girls were recounting about Clara's fate. Seeing Mrs. Clarence bearing down on the table with a look of ire was the last straw. Abigail jumped up from her seat and began backing away. She was terrified of Mrs. Clarence.

"We're all going to be murdered in our beds! We're all going to die like Clara!" she shrieked.

Abigail began laughing and crying simultaneously, garnering more and more attention from the students seated nearby as her friends watched. Most were appalled that they'd driven Abigail to such extremes, but a few were pleased at the trouble they'd stirred up.

Mrs. Clarence grabbed Abigail's arm and shook her.

"Stop this at once."

Abigail simply wailed even louder.

The older woman drew back her hand and slapped Abigail across the face.

Both stood still, shocked at what Mrs. Clarence had done.

I could read in the woman's thoughts that she hadn't really planned on striking Abigail. It was an instinctive response to stop the noise the child was making. She'd read a novel where the heroine had to slap another character to calm them.

"Abigail, you're hysterical. You need to go sit down and drink a glass of water," she said, very aware of the shocked silence all around her.

The girl swallowed and backed away, returning to her seat.

The silence continued for a moment, then the whispers and comments began like a wave filling the cafeteria. Mr. Clarence, not knowing that the students were busily criticizing his wife's action, complimented her for taking care of the matter.

Mrs. Clarence knew better, processing and correctly interpreting the expressions on the faces of the students around her. She'd lost her temper, and they knew it.

Removing myself from the human drama and the near-painful mass of emotional thoughts and reactions of the students, I exited and went outside to get rid of the food.


	14. Chapter 14

**A/N: Here it is, the last chapter. I was going to break it up into two, but decided that since it took me longer than usual to post, that I'd give you the whole thing. Sorry for the delay!**

Chapter Fourteen

Nights at Saint Anselm's Academy were curious affairs. A human would say that the corridors and grounds were eerily silent and dark. They couldn't hear the rats scurrying in the attics overhead, or the drip of the leaky faucet in the girls' lavatory on the first floor. The thoughts of sleeping humans alone could be overwhelming. Nonsensical images, weird disjointed dialogue, and frankly disturbing fantasies had to be blocked out. Exploring adolescents' dreams was a daunting prospect on the best of days, but the day after they'd heard one of their own had been murdered? There were more than a few nightmares going on as I walked down the corridors.

The trouble was, I didn't know exactly what I was looking for. I found the newly repaired lock at the top of the girls' dormitory. It didn't seem worth breaking to go out on the roof, since Clara hadn't jumped from it. I moved restlessly down the narrow stairs leading to the roof and found myself in front of Clara's door.

Dorothy was dreaming inside. Something was following her down the hallways of her family home. She was opening doors, trying to find somewhere to hide, but the doors all led back to the same hallway. She was whimpering.

I turned away. There was nothing I could do to help her. I could only read her dreams; I couldn't influence them.

Why was I here? What exactly did I think I could accomplish? Clara's murder was, after all, a human problem.

Frustrated, I came to the third floor landing, opened a window, and dropped to the lawn outside. Had Clara actually jumped from the fourth floor and landed in the fountain, she would have split like a ripe tomato. The thought of it sent me flying over hedges and wall to the forest outside the school grounds. I wanted blood.

A raccoon fell victim to my need. He was a large one, feisty too. He put up a short-lived fight, hissing and clawing as I lifted him to my mouth. I wasn't hungry, I just wanted the taste of blood in my mouth, hot, salty, and pulsing with life I no longer had.

I was pathetic.

Letting the drained corpse drop to the ground, I regarded it dispassionately. I'd have to bury it. There was no sense in leaving a bloodless animal corpse to be discovered by the humans. Using my hands, I dug deeply into the soil and dropped the lifeless body into the hole, kicking the dirt back over it and tamping it down with my feet.

I took a breath in through my nose. The scent of blood and death came only faintly. Hopefully another animal wouldn't dig up the raccoon, but even if they did, they'd likely devour it, which was a different solution to hiding the animal's corpse, but just as good.

Another scent came to me. Coffee. Who could be brewing themselves a cup of the acrid smelling liquid at this hour? I followed my nose to the married teachers' cottages and lurked outside until I found the right one.

It was Monsieur Sieyes' house, and the lights were on in the kitchen. He was thinking that they were low on milk, and wondering if he'd be able to get some more tomorrow.

"But why, Henri? Why do the police need you in the city tomorrow? Don't they know you have classes to teach?"

The woman's voice was querulous, her preoccupation with her aching back warring with her fears for her husband. With a jolt, I realized I could hear the thoughts of a third person. They were more sensations than thought, sensations of warmth, movement, and nourishment. It was the baby growing within Mrs. Sieyes.

I leaned back against a tree, flabbergasted. Babies in the womb could think?

"We've been over this before, Emily."

Sieyes' voice was strained. He dropped the spoon he'd been using to stir his coffee, and swore in French softly under his breath, so his wife wouldn't hear.

"The girl wrote love poems to me and to Pitcairn. He's being called in as well. We're both innocent, so there's nothing to worry about. The police will clear the whole thing up, and I'll be home before you know it."

"How do you know he's innocent?" Emily's voice and thoughts brightened with the hope that the police would arrest Mr. Pitcairn. She'd never liked him or his wife.

A chair creaked as Monsieur Sieyes sank down onto it heavily.

"Because he's no killer."

His voice was certain. It silenced her for a moment.

In his mind's eye he was remembering the faces of killers, the men he'd served with, and the men he'd killed in the war. He saw again the dead eyes, the soullessness of still living men who slaughtered for their country. Sieyes had seen young men like Pitcairn, newly assigned to the Western Front. They changed after their first kill. He didn't think that Pitcairn could hide a change like that.

"Neither are you."

Her thoughts were happy again. He'd placed his hand over hers. Then he destroyed her happiness.

"But I am my dear, I was a soldier. I've killed. And they know this."

Mrs. Sieyes began to cry.

"I don't want to lose you. What if you don't come back from the city? What if the baby comes while you're gone? What if they think you killed that silly girl? What if…?"

"Shh, nothing will happen."

Sieyes' chair scraped the kitchen floor as he pushed it back to stand and place his arms around his wife. He cursed himself for not realizing the affect his words would have on her. Pregnancy made her emotions a mercurial business.

She began crying harder, her thoughts a mass of fears and what ifs.

When her husband decided to use his mouth to distract her in ways other than talking, I fled. Being able to read minds was more a curse than a blessing at times.

o-o-o

The students began leaving the next day. Cars would pull up in the drive; parents would disembark, enter the school, and leave with their son or daughter. Not all of them, of course, but enough that the teachers began to worry if their jobs would last the semester.

Hartley and I were sharing a library table by the window when Steven's parents pulled up. They were terrified that their baby was going to be killed next. They also somehow knew that two teachers were being investigated for Clara's murder, and were determined to shelter Steven from possible harm.

It only took them twenty minutes to get Mr. Clarence to pull Steven from class, pack up his things and bundle him into their automobile. They didn't give him a chance to say goodbye.

He was regretting that as he looked up at the school one last time as his father hefted his suitcase into the car. He saw me in the library window.

'_It figures, the one person I don't want to say goodbye to is the only one I see,'_ he thought as he waved a hand dispiritedly.

I waved back. I didn't care what he thought of me. Even if I did, I couldn't let on that I knew by not responding in the expected way.

Steven limped over to the car and got in. Gravel sprayed as his father switched gears and sped down the drive.

Hartley glanced out the window. He'd seen me wave.

"A friend of yours?" he asked quietly.

Friend? I'd eaten lunch with him almost every day since arriving at Saint Anselm's Academy. I'd read his innermost thoughts. I knew his secret dreams, his fantasies about being able to walk without a limp, to explore jungles and deserts, to play baseball the way he wanted to, to run around the bases fast. It wasn't reciprocal. He knew nothing really personal about me. He'd thought me stuck up, standoffish.

"An acquaintance."

The librarian was glaring at us. Hartley noticed and dropped his gaze back to the pages of the book spread out on the table in front of him.

'_Everyone leaves,'_ he thought. _'Mother is dead. Father left me here. I wish I were dead too.'_

Sighing inwardly, I braced myself for another onslaught of Hartley's memories of his mother's death; thankful yet again that she'd hung herself rather than using a more bloody method.

Miss Wentworth couldn't keep her mind on the piano lesson. I started making egregious errors just to get her attention back on the music. It backfired, of course.

"Edward dear, would you rather talk about what's happened? Has one of your friends left school?"

She'd seen the exodus. She'd spoken with Mrs. Clarence, the Headmistress, and noticed the strain on her friend's face. This was Miss Wentworth's third boarding school job, and she knew that a school was only as steady as its student body. She was old now, had grown old teaching, and wasn't likely to be hired again at her age. She needed several more years of salary to pay for a little retirement cottage with a piano where she could teach private lessons. It was her dream.

"Just one," I said, thinking of Steven. "But I'm sure he'll be back once everything calms down," I lied.

"I hope so," she stared worriedly at the sheet music. "Shall we try again?"

Knowing that she wasn't really listening, I dropped the pretense and executed it perfectly.

"That was very nice dear," she said distractedly. "Why don't you practice your scales for the rest of the lesson?"

And so I did. It allowed both our minds to wander since neither of us had to concentrate on the movements my fingers had memorized on the keys.

Monsieur Sieyes didn't believe Mr. Pitcairn murdered Clara. Either Pitcairn was a better actor than he imagined, or I'd have to take Sieyes' professional soldierly opinion as truth.

Monsieur Sieyes could have done it to silence Clara's love poems. He had a pregnant wife he loved dearly, and if she thought he was having an affair with a student he'd lose her. Just because he hadn't thought '_I'm guilty_' when I was reading his mind didn't mean he wasn't guilty.

I'd searched Mr. Clarence's office thoroughly the first night I'd stayed at Saint Anselm's. Nothing in the documents indicated guilt. Frankly, they were dull as dirt to read. He kept no personal letters or diaries, just student records, staff evaluations, accounting records, and the nurse's reports. Would he kill to protect his school? Maybe, but were Clara's love poems that scandalous? The police seemed to think so. If Sieyes or Pitcairn had reported the love poems to Mr. Clarence, what would he have done?

If Clara had been having an affair with a teacher, I'd eat my hat. I read her mind. She was a silly girl, but she was still a girl, not a woman.

What about Mr. Chen? I couldn't read his mind at times, which was worrisome. He'd had an altercation with Mrs. Tuttle too. I could understand anyone wanting to kill Mrs. Tuttle, but what of Clara? And the postmistress? Why her? Assuming all three murders were related.

There were other male teachers in the school as well, ones whose thoughts I rarely bothered to read. My history teacher, Mr. Mathews, had a stolid mind. Whatever he said or read out loud to the class was exactly what he was thinking at the time. Apart from Mathews, Sieyes, and Pitcairn, all my other teachers were women. I rarely saw the teachers of the first, second, or fourth year classes. Then there were the groundskeepers, stable crew, and kitchen staff, not to mention the janitorial staff. The list of suspects kept growing and growing. If I was willing to accept that someone from town could have snuck onto the campus to kill Clara as well, then the list became even longer.

My fingers stilled on the keys.

"Do you mind if we stop here today?" I asked, giving Miss Wentworth my most blinding smile.

"Oh, yes, of course."

I'd made her heart palpitate, and she blinked. She was chiding herself for noticing that I was handsome. I smiled again and she practically fell off the piano bench as she moved away to the window. I might not be able to solve crimes, but I could still affect humans.

"My goodness, it looks like rain, doesn't it?" she asked, staring pointedly out the window and away from me.

The sky was grey, and storm clouds were gathering, darkening the room. From the sense of electricity in the air, it would probably involve lightning. Perhaps I could slip out for once instead of spending the night roaming the halls investigating and guarding. The lure of being out in the midst of nature's blast and fury where everything was open and crashing around you was nearly overwhelming.

I didn't want to be stuck inside walls with fragile humans. I wanted to be outside, hunting, running, with my own kind.

With a shock I realized I was homesick.

o-o-o

The wind whipped at my clothing, rippling my school uniform shirt like the sail of a tacking boat. The storm was nearly upon me.

I turned back to look at the school from my perch on the back wall as the first fat drops began to fall. There were a few lights still on in the windows, despite the fact that the ten o'clock curfew had passed. With the rain came thunder, booming across the sky. A few more lights came on and a couple of windows in the boys' dormitory opened so that the inhabitants could enjoy the sight of the lightning that was sure to follow.

Judging by the scent and feel of the electricity in the air, they were in for quite a show. I jumped down from the wall as the sky lit up. I was just in time too, because if I'd stayed on the wall another second, I would've been exposed by the unforgiving illumination of the lightning.

Leaning against a tree so as to blend in with my surroundings, I regarded the back expanse of the school's main building, a solid four storey edifice connected by the backs of the girls' dorm to the right and the boys' dorm to the left. Directly in front of me was the baseball diamond. Further to my left were the stables, and the faintly alluring scent of horses. I'd never drunk from a horse before. Deer, bear, and mountain lions could be killed and not missed, but pampered animals owned by the school or the students who attended it? Not a chance.

The storm continued with more cracks of lightning and booming thunder. Even under a tree I was getting drenched. It was time to go inside and dry off. I was just starting back when a ball of lightning formed over the boys' dormitory. It was incredible. It looked to be about the size of a basketball, a glowing, incandescent mass that smelt of sulfur and energy. It swirled in the air, then plunged down the side of the building and through one of the open windows.

Someone shrieked inside the room. I leapt up to the top of the tree and peered in across the baseball diamond just as the electric light was extinguished. I didn't need it to see what was happening. One boy was on the floor, face white and terrified, the other was curled up, arms around his knees, on the bed, both fixated on the glowing ball that hovered over their desk lamp. The ball moved toward the boy on the bed, roving back and forth like a tennis ball along the curved iron rails of the bed's baseboard.

He screamed just as the ball disappeared through the floor. I dropped down a couple of branches in the tree and saw the ball continue down the wall near a desk, waking both boys sleeping in the twin beds along the wall opposite. By now other boys were waking up and lights were going on further down the dormitory.

The ball whizzed around the room, went back to the desk and slid down the wall to the floor below, leaving the stench of melted wiring in its wake. I could smell it, all the way across the grassy expanse in front of me. I dropped down with it. It was now on the floor below. The window of that room was shut and the curtains drawn.

Hissing in frustration, I dropped to the ground, hoping the ball would follow its previous trajectory. Shouts and the sound of overturned furniture came from the room above, and then just as I'd hoped, a glow appeared in bottom floor room. Through the window I could see two first year boys staring at the mass from their beds as it whirled agitatedly about the room. One got out of bed, despite the shouts of the other to stay back.

He should have listened. He was too close when the ball exploded. The boy, tallish and blond, was thrown back against the door as the lightning ball dissipated over the desk lamp, causing it to spark and begin to smolder.

The boy who'd stayed in bed began to scream "Fire" at the top of his lungs.

Doors slammed open and the sound of feet pounding down the halls came from all four floors. I started toward the dormitory then stopped, looking down at my sodden clothes.

If I returned to the dormitory, I'd be noticed and asked what I'd been doing outside. I couldn't risk attracting attention.

Lightning spread across the sky again, slightly further away this time. I shrank back under the tree. Electrical phenomenon and balls of lightning were all very interesting, but it wasn't helping me to slip back inside unnoticed. I slid down the tree and sat on its exposed roots and waited.

Headmaster Clarence's voice boomed, irritated at the uproar. He'd come to take charge, but he was on the wrong floor. I grinned, imagining his face as he stomped down the second floor stairs. The smell of smoke was growing stronger.

Standing up, I saw that the two boys were now in the doorway of their room calling for water. Sparks from the fried lamp had ignited papers on the desk. Someone's homework was in ashes. The Headmaster ran into Mr. Matthews, the science teacher and their voices rose in questions.

It was Matthews who managed to get the pail of water from the end of the hall and throw it on the desk while Headmaster Clarence proceeded to question then ridicule the answers of the boys who swore to what they'd seen and heard.

Folding my arms I watched and heard the drama through the open windows.

The storm was lessening as the thunder and lightning moved off, though the rain still fell. With the crowds of boys in the corridors and the few heads that kept popping out of windows to see if the lightning ball was coming back, it would be a while before I could retreat back to my room.

I glanced over at the girls' dormitory. Several more lights than usual were on. Evidently word had traveled of the furor in the boys' dorm. Then I saw it, movement on the rooftop. Focusing my attention, I made out a voice, a male adult, and the whimpering of a female. I got to my feet as more lights came on in the girls dormitory. Cursing, I made my way quickly around the perimeter of the baseball diamond and tennis courts, careful to stay out of the many square patches of light cast from the dormitory windows.

As I drew near to the girls' dormitory, it became easier to hear and sense the thoughts of the two people on the roof. With a shock I realized the whimpering woman was Mrs. Clarence. She kept whispering, "please, oh please," over and over again so softly that only I and the man on the roof could hear her.

Her thoughts were tangled images of the roof, the sky, and the pressure of the knife against her neck as her slippered feet scored the surface beneath her. She wasn't a particularly tall woman, but her adversary was shorter than she was and his arm around her torso and arms was like iron. It kept her off balance and slumped against him as he dragged her toward the edge of the roof.

One of Marjorie Van Houten's sycophants popped her head out the window directly below and craned out toward the boys' dormitory.

"I don't see any smoke, Marjorie. I don't think the boys' dorm is on fire at all," she stated.

"Get back inside at once," came Marjorie's voice from inside. "Close that window. It's cold."

I wondered if her tone would be so snappish if she knew I could hear her. Marjorie was one way with the people she wanted to impress, and completely different with people under her control.

Mrs. Clarence heard the exchange and whimpered louder.

"Quiet!" hissed a male voice from the roof.

I frowned. The voice didn't match the thought patterns of the adult male so focused on dragging Mrs. Clarence away from the stairway door that he wasn't thinking of anything else besides quiet and stealth.

I had to do something. I started forward to jump up onto the roof.

Harriet's head emerged from a third floor window, her dishwater blonde hair silvery looking from the light inside her room. She was looking towards the boys' dorm, but she was right in my path. I moved through the bushes to the other side of the girls' dorm, but even more girls were opening windows to gaze out at the storm, searching for more lightning. I was fast, but not fast enough to get by them without being seen. I returned to the back of the girls' dorm, narrowing in on the thoughts of the two people on the roof.

Mrs. Clarence was near hysterical with fear. I blocked her out. The other one, the male, was looking around the roof, seeing and not seeing it.

Memories were flooding his mind. He'd see the rooftop one moment, and a grubby hotel room the next. The image was fuzzy. I saw through his mind's eye a bed, bureau, desk and chair with an old fashioned tin hipbath set out on the floor with towels. On the desk were shaving implements, a brush, strop, and razor.

Then there was a man in his bathrobe. He was yelling.

"Are you crazy bringing that kid here?"

"But I had to, I couldn't leave him behind."

The voice in the memory was pleading, and female, a soft alto that went along with the light brown hair and eyes and the fawn colored skirt and coat she was wearing.

"He's not coming with me because you're not coming with me," the man said flatly.

"What?" the woman was shocked.

"I'm married. Go back to your husband," he said baldly, and began to turn away to the suitcase on the bed to rummage in it.

From the perspective of the memory, the man's backside appeared huge. The whole room seemed elongated. It was the memory of a child so everything appeared bigger. A hand tightened and then released the hand of the child, whose perspective changed again to focus on the desk. It got larger as the child drew nearer. He reached and knocked the shaving brush to the floor. It rolled under the desk so he went after it and sat down, touching the bristles.

From under the desk, the child had a perfect view, set to be etched indelibly in his memory forever.

The man continued to argue with the woman, the words blurring as the child put his hands over his ears to block out the hateful sounds of his mama hurling insults and accusations and the man returning with his own insults.

Then the woman said something that stopped the man dead. His face suffused with red, as rage contorted his features. To the child, he looked like a monster.

The man drew back his fist and punched the woman's face. The force of the blow knocked her hat off and her hair askew. She fell to the floor and he dropped to his knees, grabbed her shoulder to hold her down and punched her again.

She clawed at his arm, drawing blood. He swore and put both hands around her neck, choking her. She clawed at him again, frantic now.

He loosened his grip around her neck and buried his right hand in her hair, using his grip to drag her over to the hipbath where he plunged her head under water and held it, yelling something once, twice, three times before lifting her and throwing her to the floor.

The woman was barely conscious, hat long gone, hair loose and wet against her face. She opened her eyes, saw the child looking straight at her, and immediately glanced away to the man who stood by the desk. The child could see his bathrobe and the hairy legs protruding beneath it. Then the man moved, shaving razor in hand. He dropped down by the woman, grabbed the back of her head, tilting it to expose the throat, and drew the razor across it.

Blood gushed out in a wave. He lifted her again by her hair and shoved her head and torso into the water of the hipbath so the blood would go into the water.

He staggered back, his head snapping towards the door, reacting to a loud pounding that penetrated even the child's hand covered ears.

The memory stopped abruptly. The roof came into focus again.

I realized the man whose memories I'd seen was looking for the right spot to throw the body off into the fountain on the far side. He meant to slit Mrs. Clarence's throat and toss her into the water.

The same water he'd used to drown Clara. The man was recreating his mother's death. It all made sense now. The bludgeoning of the postmistress, the strangling of Mrs. Tuttle, the laundry mistress, drowning Clara, and now slitting Mrs. Clarence's throat and leaving her in the water.

One thing didn't fit though. Clara. All the other victims were adult females. Clara was still just a girl.

"It's your turn now, mother. Bad mother. You deserve it," came the snarling voice from the roof.

It caught at my memory. The voice was somehow familiar, yet none of the adults at the school fit it, though the rage in it was a mature one, honed by years of hatred.

I couldn't wait any longer. I surged forward and jumped, landing easily on the ledge of the roof, then dropped quickly to the rooftop floor.

The man turned at the sound of my feet landing, his knife nicking Mrs. Clarence's throat. Her eyes squeezed shut with the pain, and she slumped. The man grunted in satisfaction at the sight of the blood.

Only, it wasn't a man.

It was Julius holding the knife to the headmistress's throat.

Swallowing back the instinctive surge of venom in my mouth, I stopped breathing and kept my distance.

"Julius? What are you doing?" 

I was surprised at how calm I sounded.

The boy's face contorted, his coal black hair slicked down by the rain.

"Don't call me that. I'm not Julius. I'm Hector. Julius is a baby, a little whiny, weak crybaby. I'm the one who gets things done."

He was right. I'm not sure how it was possible, but the thoughts in Julius' head right now were not his own. The tenor, the patterns, were completely different.

I took a slow step towards him, at human speed. The knife in Julius' hand was resting against the pulsing vein in Mrs. Clarence's neck, and his back was against the ledge. He'd already cut the skin over the vein. It wouldn't take much more pressure to pierce it. She'd be dead before I could stop it.

"Stop there or I cut her now," he growled.

I stopped. It was ironic really. I could rip his head off with my bare hands, but I was helpless against the threat of his killing the woman in his arms.

Checking her thoughts I realized she'd lapsed into unconsciousness.

"Whatever you say."

I had to tread carefully. His thoughts were tinged with rage. He had a job to do, and I was standing in his way. It was the only thing keeping him from doing it.

Keeping his eyes on me, Julius began to drag Mrs. Clarence along the parapet, nearer to the fountain. I remembered now that Julius was on the track team. He was small, but wiry and strong. Strong enough, evidently, to bash out one woman's brains with a baseball bat, and to strangle another from behind. And then there was Clara.

"Why Clara?" I blurted.

Julius, or Hector, as he called himself, frowned.

"She was a bad mother," he said as though it were obvious. "She let her baby doll fall out of the window. Bad mothers need to be punished."

"It was a doll," I pointed out, careful to keep any hint of incredulity from my voice.

"What if it wasn't?" he snapped, backing another foot down the parapet. "What if it was her son, and she took him to her lover's room and let him see...let him see…"

He trailed off, and the memory came flooding back, images of his mother being punched, strangled, and held down in the bath.

"I understand," I said quickly, interrupting his train of thought before he could get to the throat slitting. "I understand that bad things happen, but why to Mrs. Clarence?"

"She's bad," he muttered. "She slapped that girl. I saw it. Mothers shouldn't be bad. Bad mothers should be punished."

I understood then how broken Julius really was. His alter ego, Hector, took it upon himself to punish any woman who wasn't motherly perfection. Clara just had the bad luck to drop her doll in the fountain. He'd never stop. All I could sense from him was absolute certainty that he was right. There would always be another woman who didn't meet his expectations.

What was I supposed to do? I longed desperately for Carlisle's guidance, but Carlisle wasn't here.

There was another far off boom of thunder. Lightning couldn't be far behind. I waited until the frisson of electricity in the air began then pointed over Julius' shoulder and yelled.

"Lightning Ball!"

He began to turn and look as the sky behind him lit briefly.

That one second of inattention was all I needed. I surged forward, got my hand between the knife blade and Mrs. Clarence's neck, and wrenched her from Julius' arms. His hand flew back and cracked against the parapet, dropping the knife.

Howling with rage, he tried to leap forward, but his foot slipped. His arms flew up as his back hit the parapet and he tipped.

First his head and torso disappeared, then his hips, and finally his feet, and he was gone, leaving me cradling the headmistress in my arms. I let her down gently and laid her on the wet rooftop, then walked over and peered down over the ledge.

Girls were already shrieking and staring down from their windows from all four floors.

Julius lay half in and half out of the fountain. From the red stain growing in the fountain's water, the back of his head must've split on impact. His eyes stared up blankly, unfocussed. He was dead.

I could have saved him, I supposed. I could have dropped Mrs. Clarence, rushed forward and grabbed his leg as he went over. That would've left Mrs. Clarence with a concussion and possibly brain damage, and it would have saved a madman and a killer. And for what? A life in prison? No. He deserved to die. He had to die. I let him. And I was glad for it.

I returned to Mrs. Clarence. The rain was washing away the blood at her throat. Her eyelids were fluttering. I backed away looked around for a place to hide. She hadn't seen me. Her eyes shut the moment Julius' knife drew blood.

There were feet coming up the stairs, Louisa Maynard's thoughts at the forefront of a slew of girls coming up to see where Julius had fallen. And the scent of blood from both Mrs. Clarence and Julius down below was getting to be too much for me, even with the rain to dampen it.

Running out of options, I leapt up to the roof of the main school building, which was half a storey higher than the two dorms. I flattened myself against the tiles just as the girls emerged.

"Mrs. Clarence?" gasped Louisa, as she stopped in shock, the girls behind her nearly careening into her.

Then Louisa gathered her thoughts and began barking orders.

"Dorothy, you go and get Mr. Clarence."

"Yes, yes, but what do I say to him?" Dorothy's voice was quick and worried.

"Tell him his wife needs him. Go now!" Louisa shot over her shoulder as she strode forward to drop to her knees by the headmistress.

"What can we do?" It was the twins, Sara and Mary, with Harriet's shocked thoughts crowding in with theirs.

"Get the nurse. I don't think she's dead," Louisa muttered uncertainly.

The twins heard and began to cry as they rushed back down the stairs.

Harriet's steps, hesitant, came forward.

"Is there anything I can do?"

"Do you have a handkerchief?" Louisa asked crisply. "There's blood on her collar. I think she's hurt."

Harriet produced one from the pocket of her dressing gown, by the sound of cloth on cloth.

"Here."

Louisa thought to herself that Harriet looked about ready to faint.

"Come here," she ordered.

From the two thumps that followed, Harriet must've obeyed and dropped down to her knees.

"Put your hand here," Louisa said. "We'll hold it over the wound until help arrives."

Mrs. Clarence moaned.

"See, she's waking up already. It's going to be fine, Harriet."

And it was, for them.

Mr. Clarence and Mr. Matthews came up to the roof, followed by a bunch of students. I was able to drop back down from main building and mill around with them as the headmaster carried his wife inside. No one seemed to notice that I was a bit more drenched than the rest of them.

The police came and took charge of the body. After hearing Mrs. Clarence's story, they searched Julius' room and found his diary. According to Peter's uncle, the diary was written in two different styles of handwriting, and one of them detailed the killings so completely that there was no doubt in anyone's mind that Julius was the murderer.

"I could have saved him," I admitted to Carlisle when I was back at the farmhouse. "I just didn't want to."

Esme was outside working in the garden.

"You saved one life, Edward." He said. "That is something to be proud of."

His thoughts were full of pride for me. I couldn't bear to tell him how wrong he was about me. I'd been happy Julius was dead. I was supposed to feel sorry for him; I knew that. Carlisle would've felt sorry for him. All I felt was relief that Julius was gone. Crazy or not, he'd murdered other people, not for food, not because they'd actually deserved it, but for his own selfish need to make others suffer because of what happened to his mother.

"Death is never an easy thing," he continued. "Perhaps one day medical science will be able to help people like Julius. Psychiatry is a rising field. You'll be going to college soon, if you decide to continue your studies. Maybe you should consider getting a degree in it."

I was hard pressed not to snort in derision. It wouldn't have been polite.

"No thank you, Carlisle. Psychiatry isn't for me."

He was disappointed but hopeful.

"There are lots of other fields, Edward. I'm sure you'll find one that interests you."

That was the problem. Our interests were diverging. I was home, yet something had changed. Carlisle was worried that I might be feeling guilty that I hadn't managed to save Julius. My fear was that he'd discover I didn't feel guilty at all.

Esme came in with an armful of flowers.

"Who'd like to help me find a vase?" she asked brightly.

Carlisle's mind leapt immediately to how Esme would look carrying flowers in her wedding gown. He'd asked her to marry him in my absence and they'd set the date for the end of summer to give her a few more months to shed her newborn cravings.

"I'll get it," I answered, leaving Carlisle to his love struck fantasy.

I shoved all thoughts of Julius away. It was over. I was home, and that was all that mattered.

The End.

**A/N: I'm really interested to know if anyone saw that one coming. Please leave a review and let me know if you guessed that the culprit was a student, and if you liked or hated the story. Any suggestions for improvement are welcome.**


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